In today’s digital age, technology is constantly evolving, offering radical new growth opportunities for companies to innovate, reinvent themselves and open up new perspectives to create and contribute to the well-being of humanity. Covid-19 has created a complex, multi-faceted technology landscape that has not only accelerated the demand for digital innovation, but also challenged advanced manufacturing facilities. India has made incredible strides in technology and the digital economy over the years. From developing cutting-edge AI skills to rolling out digital payments, 5G to high-performance computing, India has proven to be one of the most innovative nations in the world. Indeed, India’s current digital transformation (DX) adoption landscape has been evolving rapidly, with DX spending projected to grow to $23.6 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 17 percent. In addition, investments in DX technology are expected to continue to accelerate as a paradigm shift in the long-term strategic digital and resilience goals of companies.
In 2023, we anticipate five major technology trends that will define India’s growth and resilience.
Embrace the digital transformation
India’s feverish pace of adopting technology across the board has positioned it on the cusp of digital transformation. In recent years we have seen many paper-based processes being converted to simpler, digital processes. The India Stack is a game changer and a unique asset for us. UPI has taken India from a paper currency market to a market synonymous with digital payments. DigiLocker is a great example of how, thanks to technology, citizens no longer need to carry cards and papers with them, but are instead served by a single app that can keep all their government paperwork such as driver’s licenses, vaccination records, education certificates and more safe. Face-to-face meetings are shifting to video calls as more employees continue to work from home. Given this environment, Indian companies are poised to make significant investments in digital transformation and IT modernization. According to the latest report from IDC, more than 95 percent of IT decision makers in India said their organization plans to spend more than 2021 on digital transformation initiatives, with spending in India expected to reach $85 billion by 2026 Our Customers are digital and companies need to become more digital to serve them!
AI to power the next wave of business growth
AI is no longer just a buzzword. By 2023, AI is expected to define commercial applications and internal business optimization tools across a variety of industries. In fact, the adoption of AI is expected to add $500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, and as such, companies would need to focus on finding ways to streamline processes, increase productivity and fill the existing skills gaps . Organizations must now recognize how AI can be used to support informed decision-making not only about short-term decisions, but also about their future business paths. AI has shown it has the potential to solve many of the world’s problems, but for businesses it offers a distinct advantage; Optimization. For example, as the manufacturing industry in India continues to expand, AI could provide important insights into managing supplies, production methods, and even inventory management, which would result in lower operational costs. With a digital audience in the country, we have so much data being and being created that this presents a massive AI opportunity ahead of us!
The digital infrastructure will drive the economy
India also enjoys some of the lowest mobile data rates in the world, allowing the country to bring a large chunk of its previously untapped population online. While boasting some of the lowest data rates in the world, this collective also generates the second highest data volumes in the world, unlocking India’s vast data center potential. For comparison, India has 20 percent of the world’s internet users, but the country only provides 2 percent of the world’s servers. Consider the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) going through 7.8 billion transactions in December 2022, according to data shared by the National Payments Society of India (NCPI). Clearly, technology has started to weave itself into the fabric of economic progress, so increasing the country’s server capacity is not only important, it’s imminent. Data center growth will play a crucial role in India’s goal of doubling its GDP and becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy.
Building a hyper-connected and intelligent world
The increasing speed of digital disruption has changed business dynamics forever, creating new business models, revenue streams and digital ecosystems in this digital world. In 2023, the focus is on harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and edge computing will continue to be felt. IoT has the potential to radically change the way companies evaluate and think about operations, product development, and the design of physical space—all things that affect the bottom line. By 2023, over 43 billion devices are projected to be connected to the internet, and with digital twins on the horizon, digital replicas of real things will soon become commonplace.
5G will be game-changing for India and with its recent rollout it is expected to build a market of 31 million 5G users by the end of 2022. According to Ericsson, 5G-enabled digitization is projected to reach a $17 billion opportunity by 2030. As such, India will be in a strategic position to boost its digital economy, enable advanced infrastructure, take advantage of improved access to education and healthcare and seamless processes to transform businesses. Eventually, edge computing will account for more than 50 percent of the new enterprise IT infrastructure that companies are deploying.
Smartphones and PCs will shape the networked world
While smartphones in India have continued their steady growth over the past decade, the pandemic has shown us that the PC remains a crucial tool for consumers and businesses. As everyone transitioned to a work-from-home model, demand for laptops, desktops, and monitors skyrocketed, proving that the PC is still a device of choice for being productive. Demand signals may be cyclical, but the net performance of these devices as an integral part of our growth story is clear. The education sector has also embraced digital learning on a large scale across the country, with the government launching several programs at all academic levels to facilitate hybrid learning. Gaming continues to see strong growth across the board with a projected CAGR of 29 percent to $1.19 billion in fiscal 2025. While the smartphone and PC industries may face some headwinds in the coming months, related industries are such as software and entertainment , cloud, web3, education and even AR/VR are seeing a sharp increase in consumption, indicating a positive outlook for the future.
Advanced digital technologies are coming your way. Many of these trends are already making their way into the business world, and these won’t just be your standard upgrades that will bring about new and unexpected ways of doing business. As we enter 2023, organizations must navigate this changing landscape while scaling innovation and gaining a better understanding of how technology will continue to accelerate digital transformation across industries as we head into an exciting new era.
By Santhosh Viswanathan, Managing Director and Vice President – Sales Marketing & Communications Group, Intel India
In 2023, we anticipate five major technology trends that will define India’s growth and resilience.
Embrace the digital transformation
India’s feverish pace of adopting technology across the board has positioned it on the cusp of digital transformation. In recent years we have seen many paper-based processes being converted to simpler, digital processes. The India Stack is a game changer and a unique asset for us. UPI has taken India from a paper currency market to a market synonymous with digital payments. DigiLocker is a great example of how, thanks to technology, citizens no longer need to carry cards and papers with them, but are instead served by a single app that can keep all their government paperwork such as driver’s licenses, vaccination records, education certificates and more safe. Face-to-face meetings are shifting to video calls as more employees continue to work from home. Given this environment, Indian companies are poised to make significant investments in digital transformation and IT modernization. According to the latest report from IDC, more than 95 percent of IT decision makers in India said their organization plans to spend more than 2021 on digital transformation initiatives, with spending in India expected to reach $85 billion by 2026 Our Customers are digital and companies need to become more digital to serve them!
AI to power the next wave of business growth
AI is no longer just a buzzword. By 2023, AI is expected to define commercial applications and internal business optimization tools across a variety of industries. In fact, the adoption of AI is expected to add $500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, and as such, companies would need to focus on finding ways to streamline processes, increase productivity and fill the existing skills gaps . Organizations must now recognize how AI can be used to support informed decision-making not only about short-term decisions, but also about their future business paths. AI has shown it has the potential to solve many of the world’s problems, but for businesses it offers a distinct advantage; Optimization. For example, as the manufacturing industry in India continues to expand, AI could provide important insights into managing supplies, production methods, and even inventory management, which would result in lower operational costs. With a digital audience in the country, we have so much data being and being created that this presents a massive AI opportunity ahead of us!
The digital infrastructure will drive the economy
India also enjoys some of the lowest mobile data rates in the world, allowing the country to bring a large chunk of its previously untapped population online. While boasting some of the lowest data rates in the world, this collective also generates the second highest data volumes in the world, unlocking India’s vast data center potential. For comparison, India has 20 percent of the world’s internet users, but the country only provides 2 percent of the world’s servers. Consider the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) going through 7.8 billion transactions in December 2022, according to data shared by the National Payments Society of India (NCPI). Clearly, technology has started to weave itself into the fabric of economic progress, so increasing the country’s server capacity is not only important, it’s imminent. Data center growth will play a crucial role in India’s goal of doubling its GDP and becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy.
Building a hyper-connected and intelligent world
The increasing speed of digital disruption has changed business dynamics forever, creating new business models, revenue streams and digital ecosystems in this digital world. In 2023, the focus is on harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and edge computing will continue to be felt. IoT has the potential to radically change the way companies evaluate and think about operations, product development, and the design of physical space—all things that affect the bottom line. By 2023, over 43 billion devices are projected to be connected to the internet, and with digital twins on the horizon, digital replicas of real things will soon become commonplace.
5G will be game-changing for India and with its recent rollout it is expected to build a market of 31 million 5G users by the end of 2022. According to Ericsson, 5G-enabled digitization is projected to reach a $17 billion opportunity by 2030. As such, India will be in a strategic position to boost its digital economy, enable advanced infrastructure, take advantage of improved access to education and healthcare and seamless processes to transform businesses. Eventually, edge computing will account for more than 50 percent of the new enterprise IT infrastructure that companies are deploying.
Smartphones and PCs will shape the networked world
While smartphones in India have continued their steady growth over the past decade, the pandemic has shown us that the PC remains a crucial tool for consumers and businesses. As everyone transitioned to a work-from-home model, demand for laptops, desktops, and monitors skyrocketed, proving that the PC is still a device of choice for being productive. Demand signals may be cyclical, but the net performance of these devices as an integral part of our growth story is clear. The education sector has also embraced digital learning on a large scale across the country, with the government launching several programs at all academic levels to facilitate hybrid learning. Gaming continues to see strong growth across the board with a projected CAGR of 29 percent to $1.19 billion in fiscal 2025. While the smartphone and PC industries may face some headwinds in the coming months, related industries are such as software and entertainment , cloud, web3, education and even AR/VR are seeing a sharp increase in consumption, indicating a positive outlook for the future.
Advanced digital technologies are coming your way. Many of these trends are already making their way into the business world, and these won’t just be your standard upgrades that will bring about new and unexpected ways of doing business. As we enter 2023, organizations must navigate this changing landscape while scaling innovation and gaining a better understanding of how technology will continue to accelerate digital transformation across industries as we head into an exciting new era.
By Santhosh Viswanathan, Managing Director and Vice President – Sales Marketing & Communications Group, Intel India
