The launch of TCS Generative AI, a set of apps that it will provide to its clients, was announced on Monday by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the largest information technology (IT) services company in India by market capitalization. The company is collaborating with Google to offer its generative artificial intelligence (AI) services to customers and will combine its own tools with Google’s generative AI tools like Vertex and Model Garden to deliver the service.
TCS stated that it will collaborate with clients to develop generative AI solutions using “client-specific contextual knowledge”. These joint initiatives will be made available in five of TCS’s international innovation hubs, which are located in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, and Japan.
According to a statement from the company, it will also upskill its personnel to fulfil the demand for use cases involving generative AI. TCS claimed that it will be providing 40,000 Google Cloud generative AI certifications to its staff in order to construct for its clients, adding that the business currently has 50,000 employees versed in AI use cases. Within the next 12 months, employees will have access to the upskilling certifications.
According to a statement from Krishnan Ramanujam, president of TCS’ enterprise growth group, the company is “investing in assets, frameworks, and talent to harness the power of generative AI to enable growth and transformation for customers.”
It’s true that TCS has previously discussed creating generative AI capabilities as part of its commercial products. On April 24, K. Ananth Krishnan, the chief technology officer at TCS, said in an exclusive interview with Mint that the company would not be reducing its research and development (R&D) expenditure that it makes on new tech projects, such as generative AI and quantum computing, despite a projected market decline in tech spending.
N Ganapathy Subramaniam, the chief operating officer, stated during the company’s FY23 earnings conference on April 12 that “machine learning is a crucial area for most firms, and practically everyone is asking how we’re integrating ChatGPT into our solutions. The intriguing part is figuring out how we can use machine learning and deep learning to increase the quality of the data we already have accessible to us and raise the bar for our own delivery skills.
Infosys, the second-largest provider of IT services in India, according to CEO Salil Parekh, has “active projects with clients working on generative AI platforms.”
Others have also made progress in this young industry, which gained notoriety with the release of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot in November of last year, including companies like HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra.
The early investments in generative AI will, according to industry observers, remain exploratory in character and may not produce meaningful financial returns in the near future. The latest technological advancements in generative AI capabilities for IT service providers will be “incremental” in nature and will primarily include proofs of concept in the near future, according to Kumar Rakesh, analyst for IT and auto at brokerage firm BNP Paribas.
