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Building Sovereign Systems, Responsible AI Teams, & Leading IndiaAI’s Next Wave: Exclusive With Nikhil Malhotra, Tech Mahindra
AI is no longer a buzzword but a corporate mandate. Enterprises worldwide are racing to unlock the full potential of AI. However, the trickiest part is embedding AI to achieve measurable outcomes while balancing innovation with responsibility and compliance.
In this context, Nikhil Malhotra, Chief Innovation Officer & Global Head of AI & Emerging Technologies, sheds light on the company’s AI-first playbook, the rise of sovereign AI, and India’s opportunity to claim global AI leadership. From cutting case resolution times in half to building sovereign language models, Tech Mahindra is showing how “AI Delivered Right” can fuel both innovation and compliance.
How is Tech Mahindra embedding AI across enterprise solutions to create measurable business impact?
Tech Mahindra adopts a pragmatic approach to integrating AI within enterprises, ensuring a real and measurable impact. Our narrative of ‘AI Delivered Right’ reflects this philosophy, which focuses on applying AI to achieve tangible outcomes across four key dimensions: productivity, transformation, innovation, and assurance.
For example, we helped a global software company achieve a 50% reduction in case resolution time through an intelligent automation program. We developed a multi-agent framework for a European telecom client that enhanced data pipeline quality by 70% while reducing development timelines by 20%. In Saudi Arabia, we developed a GenAI-powered localized knowledge search using small language models to enhance data privacy and streamline information retrieval.
Additionally, through our IP, VerifAI, which is part of our Orion agentic platform, we deliver observability, validation, and verification for AI pipelines. Together, these efforts demonstrate how we embed AI responsibly and effectively to create sustainable business outcomes.
With emerging technologies like AI, edge computing, and 5G, what’s your strategy to future-proof Tech Mahindra’s service offerings globally?
At Tech Mahindra, we future-proof our offerings by investing significantly in R&D through Makers Lab, our dedicated research and innovation hub. Makers Lab is focused on solving real-world problems by advancing AI, quantum, and immersive technologies. It has been instrumental in pioneering initiatives like Project Indus, our sovereign LLM for India.
The Lab also collaborates with governments, academia, and enterprises on cutting-edge areas such as deepfakes, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and quantum computing, while establishing centers of excellence with customers to drive continuous innovation. Importantly, it nurtures talent by engaging interns and researchers in projects related to AI, the metaverse, and quantum computing.
Beyond research, Makers Lab advises customers on investment strategies for AI and emerging technologies, ensuring that innovation aligns with business value and future regulatory requirements.
Sovereign AI and data localization are becoming critical in India. How should enterprises balance innovation with regulatory compliance?
Balancing innovation with regulatory compliance is a complex challenge, but India has already laid strong foundations through initiatives such as the DPDP Act. Sovereign AI is also gaining momentum across Asia to counter risks like data theft.
Additionally, Tech Mahindra has contributed by developing localized solutions such as Sahabat.AI, a Bahasa-based LLM in Indonesia. For India, enterprises must approach sovereign AI by considering how models are developed, whether building from the ground up or customizing global LLMs for local use cases.
Data creation, storage, and flow are equally critical, as data remains both the fuel and the risk for innovation. Privacy-by-design must be embedded into solutions, with controlled innovation sandboxes to balance experimentation with oversight. With the Responsible AI Committee already established in India, the focus now should be on operationalizing these principles and ensuring enterprises innovate within a trusted and compliant framework.
As AI adoption accelerates, ethical AI and security are key concerns. What frameworks or governance models do you see as essential for responsible AI?
Responsible AI necessitates robust frameworks that strike a balance between innovation and accountability. The OECD AI Principles emphasize inclusive growth, transparency, and human-centered values. At the same time, the EU AI Act provides a risk-based regulatory framework, classifying use cases from minimal to unacceptable risk.
In the US, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework outlines four key pillars—Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage—to ensure that AI systems remain trustworthy. To complement these, organizations should define KPIs such as the percentage of AI use cases classified by risk tiers, bias detection metrics, mean time to detect and correct model drift, and regulatory audit pass rates. These frameworks and metrics provide the governance structure needed to ensure AI is deployed responsibly, securely, and with measurable accountability.
Looking at the global AI race, where does India’s talent and infrastructure stand today, and what steps are needed to position it as a competitive hub in AI and emerging tech?
India is significantly transforming talent and infrastructure to compete in the global AI race. R&D activity is expanding rapidly, supported by government initiatives and increasing corporate investment.
The government has also procured advanced GPUs to provide enterprises and research bodies with the computing power required to develop sovereign AI systems. However, to position India as a global hub, we need to accelerate research output and strengthen collaboration among academia, government, and corporates.
Building a more inclusive innovation ecosystem, expanding high-performance computing capacity, and focusing on applied AI research will be essential steps to solidify India’s leadership in AI and emerging technologies.
