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00:00Welcome to the Khadish Times Leadership Podcast Series, where we discuss the trends and innovation shaping the future of business
00:08in the Middle East.
00:09Technology now underpins virtually every aspect of modern society, from government services to critical industries to enterprise operations, AI and
00:17cloud computing.
00:18To discuss how technology is shaping the future of business in the Middle East and what role Tata Communications is
00:25playing in enabling this transformation,
00:27today I'm delighted to be joined by Mr. Vineet Mehta, who is the Vice President and Regional Business Head of
00:33the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.
00:37Mr. Vineet, thank you so much for being with us today.
00:40Thank you for having me here. Good morning.
00:41Good morning.
00:42Let's start with what's making headlines.
00:44Recent disruptions in the Middle East region have raised new questions about business resilience.
00:50How prepared is the Middle East's digital infrastructure to handle these kind of challenges?
00:56I would say this region, especially the GCC nations, have rightfully focused on infrastructure, they're rightly focused on security, they're
01:09rightly focused on technology, what they're bringing to the region.
01:12They're rightly focused on military readiness, if we have to talk about that in the current scenario.
01:17But I think one factor which has been either taken for granted or kind of has been overlooked is the
01:25technology, digital infrastructure, which is also a government imperative and which is also an enterprise imperative.
01:33And when we say that, I think what we are talking about is not only the disruptions in the exterior
01:41world of an enterprise, it's also the inside an organization, how it should be shaping up.
01:47So, and with the AI evolution all coming in, an enterprise is, I should not use the word, but they'll
01:57be forced to use AI in many ways, you know, whether they consume it for their own self, for automation,
02:05etc.
02:05Or they use AI and start offering creative innovative services to their end customers.
02:11So, I think all of this needs a resilient infrastructure internally within an organization, a seamless resilient infrastructure.
02:20In our terminology or technical terminology, we call it the LAN.
02:24The LAN is the local area network within an enterprise.
02:26And also a resilient WAN infrastructure.
02:29When you are talking about the WAN, WAN is the wide area network, which is how the exterior world or
02:34the fabric looks like for an enterprise.
02:37And this, when we connect multiple enterprises, that's where an entire country shapes up in a landscape as we see
02:45it as startup communications.
02:47When we talk about this digital backbone, what are the non-negotiables that it actually needs to have in terms
02:54of the resilience?
02:54What are the non-negotiables?
02:56I think the non-negotiables are, it has to be borderless.
03:01It should not be confined to a particular country.
03:04It has to be global in nature.
03:06It has to be secure for sure against any cyber threats or anything else which is coming in.
03:13And again, going back, how fast it can scale up and how fast it can, let me say, scale down
03:22to the needs of the enterprise.
03:26I think these are the couple of non-negotiables.
03:30And all of this adds up to, again, the same topic for the sake of iteration is resilience.
03:37You know, how resilient you are.
03:39And the resilience covers all these topics.
03:42You know, it has to be borderless.
03:43It has to be secure.
03:44It has to be, you know, scalable at speed.
03:47With AI coming in, I think the challenges are far more for an enterprise than they were earlier.
03:51The adoption of AI is mandatory.
03:54And as also they say, AI brings its own challenges with it.
03:58You know, you need tons of extensive bandwidth.
04:02I can probably just give you an example of how AI is slowly taking up the interaction conversations.
04:09So, for example, if you pick up the phone and it said 15 years back, you call a call center.
04:15So, the call center, most of the times it will be an agent picking up the phone and talking to
04:19you.
04:20These days, the AI agents have taken over.
04:24You may not even realize, but you are talking to an AI agent.
04:27A bot.
04:28A bot.
04:28Yeah, you don't even know it.
04:29So, what has happened in an enterprise?
04:32The agents, physical agents are replaced by AI agents.
04:36Yes.
04:36Which means the consumption of human manpower is getting a little lesser.
04:41And the consumption of AI tokens has picked up.
04:44Now, where are those AI tokens coming from?
04:47They are coming from some infrastructure, some application which is driving the AI and the intelligence built into it.
04:54So, that's how slowly AI is shaping up and taking over a lot of things from an automation standpoint or
05:03bringing more intelligence into the standpoint or bringing more customer experience, enriching the customer experience in that sense.
05:10Can you talk to us?
05:12You've said somewhere that resilience cannot come from avoidance.
05:15Can you talk to us a little bit about the myth of isolation?
05:19I think the enterprises, I'm glad you brought this up.
05:22So, we keep talking about this as well.
05:24Yeah.
05:26Enterprises were and probably still are in that myth of isolation, right?
05:31That if you're isolated, you're secure.
05:34If you're isolated, you may not be vulnerable to the external threats, you know.
05:40That's the perspective, but it's not the truth.
05:42That's the perspective, but that isn't a truth.
05:45Yeah.
05:45You know, so unless you are borderless, unless you are fully resilient, unless you are hyper-connected in this particular
05:53world, you can close your eyes and say, I'm secure, but you aren't.
05:58Yeah.
05:58So, that is a myth which I believe most of the CIOs or the organizations have come out of, but
06:06there is still more to do.
06:07I think the silos in which the enterprises tend to operate, and there are various reasons for that, you know.
06:13It could be a political reason within an organization, or it could be any other reason.
06:19The tendency to work in silos in an enterprise is something which is not going to help them anymore, especially
06:27with AI coming in.
06:28So, you encourage the, I guess, what's the opposite of avoidance?
06:33You encourage not to work in isolation, right?
06:36At Tata Communications, that's kind of where you differentiate your approach.
06:41That's the major differentiator of ours.
06:43That will take us to our next question, which is about cyber attacks.
06:48When something major happens, a conflict or a cyber attack, what actually happens inside Tata Communications?
06:55Like, what's the first thing your teams are doing behind the scenes?
06:59That's something which we do, used to do manually in-out a couple, a decade or before.
07:05But I think these days it's kind of fully automated because of the resilience which we have built in our
07:12own network, right?
07:13And when I say the network, we start with the subsea cables, the submarine cables, which we are the largest,
07:20biggest operator of the subsea cables in the world.
07:22And proudly carry 30% of the world's internet on our infrastructure.
07:27So, how critical it is for us, for our own use in the first place as a global internet service
07:35provider to make our network resilient.
07:37So, building multiple diverse routes, you know, whether it is through the sea, through the terrestrial paths, etc., etc., is
07:47something which we have done and we have engineered it and we have improved it over a period of time,
07:54right?
07:54Today, we, I would say, knock on wood, we have hardly seen a disruption where we have to physically or
08:03manually transfer data from here to there, right?
08:07We have seen multiple outages in the Atlantic Ocean.
08:09We have seen multiple outages in the Pacific in the past because cable cuts is a norm.
08:14Yeah, it happens often.
08:15It happens, you know, it could be a shock bite, it could be a ship anchor taking our cables, blowing
08:21them away, etc., or it could be a sabotage.
08:24It has happened in several regions as well.
08:27But again, those are like, you know, they don't affect us much these days.
08:32And because of the automated disaster recovery which we have built in three layers in our infrastructure, one is a
08:42physical layer in the subsea cables, the second is in our infrastructure layer, when the infrastructure is the cloud part
08:49of it, how quickly we are able to switch between, you know, one region to another so that the applications
08:56of my enterprises who are hosted with me in my cloud don't get affected.
09:00And the third most important is the cybersecurity part.
09:04In cybersecurity as well, it needs a disaster recovery.
09:07Okay, so if the internet worked like a city's road network, what would happen if one of the biggest highways
09:13suddenly closes?
09:16Can you paint that picture for us?
09:18Give us the visual.
09:19That's a good analogy.
09:21So internet works that way, if you ask me.
09:24So if there's a disruption on the major highway and you're driving, what do you do?
09:29You try to take the slip roads or you take a detour.
09:33Take a detour.
09:34What if that detour is also crowded?
09:38You are stuck again, right?
09:40So that's exactly what we do.
09:42There are several of these detours planned and engineered in our network that even if something happens to the big
09:48highway, it should not be felt by the end user as to is there any congestion.
09:53It still has to work seamlessly.
09:55It can still not be vulnerable to cyber attacks.
09:58You know, you may take a detour and you'll get stuck in a place where, you know.
10:03You don't want to be.
10:04You don't want to be, right?
10:05So that detour could work against you as well.
10:09So we have to make sure that all those detours are equally well protected from a cyber threat perspective.
10:16And they are, you know, as seamless as they were before.
10:20Great.
10:20So how do you build against that kind of risk?
10:23I mean, is, you know, you've said that how to, you know, you said that you, if that detour could
10:30create more traffic, for example.
10:32But is there a way that you can build against it, the risk?
10:37Again, you know, I was telling you that AI is consumed either for your own self or it's offered as
10:46a service to your end customers.
10:48So to engineer this, again, the AI has helped us a lot in terms of determining, you know, what kind
10:58of a traffic these detours would tend to carry in the case of an outage.
11:03Okay.
11:04How many customers I would have in that detour lane who may get affected and have to be brought back
11:10either left or right or, you know.
11:12So I can predict it.
11:13Yeah.
11:13So we do a lot of this kind of analysis through Agentic AI and, you know, we've built those AI
11:20models into our network.
11:22Not many operators have done this, but since we tend to operate one of the, and we connect continents.
11:28We are not in one region, right?
11:30So I have to equally take care of the Americas.
11:33I have to equally take care of my home turf, which is India.
11:36And I have to equally take care of the Gulf.
11:38And we have to build a resilience around the bottlenecks.
11:42The bottleneck could be the state of Hormuz.
11:44The bottleneck could be the state of Malacca.
11:46This bottleneck could be Babel Mandeb.
11:48It could be the Swiss Canal.
11:50So all those bottlenecks, again, AI has helped us a lot to re-engineer our network.
11:55And that's probably we can proudly today say that, you know, we haven't had a single case of a rerouting
12:03instance in our network.
12:05So everyone's talking about the Middle East becoming the next technology hub.
12:09But with that growth becomes greater responsibility, of course.
12:12Do you think the region is ready for what is next?
12:15I strongly believe it is, you know, especially the leap which this region has taken in terms of AI adoption.
12:24It is becoming the global technology AI hub, so to say, which will not only cater to Africa, it will
12:32also cater to the Indian subcontinent.
12:33There are a lot of hyperscalers, cloud infrastructure providers who are in the region, they're coming to the region, then
12:41they're expanding in the region.
12:43And last but not the least, I think the government is also promoting and getting more of these infrastructures or
12:54these technology stuffs into the region.
12:58And this region is an ideal strategic digital bridge between the East and the West.
13:06Massive infrastructures are getting built.
13:08And, you know, we are in the design stage with those kind of AI companies.
13:13And I'm sure there are a lot of them coming here in the region as well.
13:16We are already having conversations with them.
13:19Saudi is one of them.
13:20UA is obviously one of the leaders in this particular space.
13:25And so that's pretty much it.
13:27So if you are, you've taken a leap of faith that this region has to become, you know, the technology
13:35hub or the AI hub or the technology provider for the region,
13:40it requires a lot more responsibility, which the government should take care of.
13:46And help enterprises build scalable, resilient, secure digital infrastructure.
13:54And that's where, you know, the likes of data communications, we play a critical role.
13:59So what's the biggest challenge that companies have when it comes to digital resilience?
14:04If current approaches are like no longer sufficient, what do you think is broken?
14:10Like what is the thing that needs to change for them?
14:12More and more enterprises are now realizing it.
14:15And they have at least tried to come out of it is working in silos.
14:20I can give you an analogy again.
14:22You know what an operating system is, right?
14:24An Android or iOS.
14:26iOS.
14:27So you may see us as an enterprise operating system.
14:32Okay.
14:33Right.
14:33I'm an operating system who is seamless and seen across all the entire organization.
14:39And any application which is riding on top is conversing through my operating system.
14:48Because that operating system is the digital fabric.
14:51Right.
14:51So it's like the umbrella.
14:52It's like the umbrella.
14:53Network.
14:54Yeah.
14:55It's like the umbrella.
14:56Interesting.
14:56So also with what you've said, it's also about balancing growth and efficiency, correct?
15:02Those are one of the challenges of what the enterprises would face today, right?
15:08The enterprises have to scale at speed.
15:13The enterprises have to make sure that, you know, their network is resilient.
15:20The enterprises have to make sure that they are efficient at all times.
15:25When I say efficiency is, you know, that you can keep adding AI to your ecosystem as much
15:33as you want, but you're also adding cost.
15:36And by virtue of adding that cost, your cost to serve, the customer also is going to increase.
15:42Right.
15:43So if you're not able to increase that, what essentially you're becoming, you're becoming
15:46financially unstable.
15:48Yes.
15:48Right.
15:48So that's also something which we always keep in mind.
15:53It's in our DNA, first of all, as Tata Communications, to keep us cost efficient.
15:58And by virtue of that, make our customers always, you know, cost.
16:03Yeah, it's good that you're not saying to have AI as the band-aid over everything.
16:07It's not like that because it can be.
16:09It's not a band-aid.
16:10Yeah, it's not a band-aid.
16:11It's not a band-aid.
16:12Yeah, it's not a patch.
16:13It costs more.
16:13Yeah, it is not.
16:15Okay.
16:15So you talked about something called Tata Communications digital fabric.
16:20If you had to explain it to someone outside the industry or has no clue about Tata Communications
16:27or, you know, digital landscape, how would you describe it?
16:30Digital fabric, as I would describe it, is with the analogy of the operating system, which
16:36I gave you just now.
16:37I'll give you another analogy and then I'll come to the details of or the four pillars of
16:42how we envisage a digital fabric should be or should look like, right?
16:47So, you know how Uber works, right?
16:50When you book Uber cab, you book it, it's linked to your credit card and then the cab arrives
17:01and then you see, okay, the airport is 20 minutes away, etc, etc.
17:06All that, it's an intelligent application.
17:08Yes.
17:09We call Uber an intelligent application.
17:12Can Uber work without a Google?
17:14No.
17:14So we are the Google for the Ubers of the world.
17:18Okay.
17:18You're paving the direction.
17:20Yeah.
17:20So that map on which the Google application is built is, in a way, also a digital fabric
17:29which Tata Comp is offering.
17:30I'm just taking an analogy, right?
17:32Okay.
17:32And then can a Google, let me get to another similar analogy.
17:38You have this studio lit up, you know.
17:41What if the power goes off?
17:43Everything goes off.
17:44Everything goes off, right?
17:45So you may see us as something as critical as a power, which is a necessity.
17:52I see.
17:53When you have power, you can switch on the light.
17:55You can plug in this mic.
17:58You can put in XYZ.
18:00You can put up a music system.
18:03You can do anything, right?
18:04So similarly, in an enterprise environment, we are the, we can also be seen as an electricity.
18:10Okay.
18:10So the undercurrent of?
18:12The undercurrent of everything.
18:13The organization.
18:14Everything.
18:14Yes.
18:15It's seamless.
18:16Yes, it is.
18:17If it goes off, what's the resilient way?
18:20A genset.
18:22It has to switch over seamlessly to a genset so that you and me, when we are talking, we don't
18:26have a disruption.
18:27So that is a very simplistic analogy.
18:30That's a good way to think of it.
18:31Now I can imagine it very easily.
18:32Yeah, so we are something which is seen as forgiven.
18:36Internet, it has to be there.
18:39What can you think about, you know, without an internet today?
18:43Nothing.
18:43And nothing will really work, right?
18:46So an internet or a power.
18:48So these things are considered to be forgiven.
18:51These things are considered to be always available.
18:55To make them always available, they have to be resilient.
18:58And an internet, if there is a cyber attack on an internet and your screen on the laptop goes blue,
19:03so you are literally nowhere again, right?
19:06Yeah.
19:07So again, it has to be secure.
19:09Yep.
19:09Because that attack into your laptop is coming through the internet link.
19:13Yes.
19:13So that internet is a digital fabric.
19:17An electricity, which I'm talking about, is a kind of what we do.
19:23You can plug in, plug out, anything out of it.
19:25Yeah.
19:25And an operating system, as simple as that, or a Google Maps to an Uber.
19:29Okay.
19:29That's a very good way of explaining it.
19:31And to further dwell on the digital fabric of data communication, I think we have carefully split this into four
19:40pillars of ours.
19:42You know, one, importantly, is the network.
19:45And when I say the network is the subsea cables or it could be, you know, the LAN network or
19:50the WAN network, everything.
19:51Then comes the infrastructure on top of the network.
19:54It's all led, as you see.
19:55So we start layer one, we go up to layer seven.
19:58Okay.
19:58So then comes the second layer, when I say infrastructure, it's the data centers, it's the cloud, it's the GPUs
20:08for the AI.
20:09That's the infrastructure, which we talk about.
20:11And the infrastructure also has cybersecurity as one of the pillars built into it.
20:16So network, infrastructure, then comes the interaction.
20:21So when we say interaction, what do you mean by interaction?
20:23So as I mentioned to you earlier, you're talking to a call center agent, you're talking to a bot.
20:31So how do you make an elevated customer experience and enrich it over, you know, using AI again, right?
20:41That's what our interaction fabric brings to the enterprises.
20:45If you were on an Emirates Airlines, I'm, again, using more analogies than technology, technological words.
20:50When you are on Emirates Airlines, there's a air hostess who comes with an iPad.
20:56And she says, okay, Ms. Yaspin, you've been a SkyWars member, blah, blah, blah.
21:03We see this is your interest.
21:05You like this food, you ordered this last time.
21:07What can I get you, etc, etc.
21:09Yeah.
21:10So where is that intelligence on her iPad coming from?
21:15It's coming from two things.
21:16One is the network.
21:19Again, going back to the pillars which I talked about.
21:21The network is, in this case, is nothing but an eSIM.
21:24Okay.
21:24So those are my eSIMs.
21:26Okay.
21:26Right?
21:26I'm talking about the interaction fabric now.
21:28Uh-huh.
21:29Right?
21:29And then that intelligence of what did Yasmin consume in her previous flight?
21:35What does she like in terms of her food habits?
21:38Is she a vegan or a non-vegan, etc.?
21:40All that intelligence is coming through doing analysis of Yasmin in her previous flights.
21:46Over time.
21:46Over time.
21:47Is, again, something which we bring on the table.
21:49Okay.
21:49And then Yasmin has a bad experience with Emirates on a particular flight.
21:55She goes and she calls the call center.
21:57That call is, again, an interaction.
22:00You are talking to a call center agent.
22:02It could be a bot or otherwise.
22:04But we are enabling that conversation.
22:07Yeah.
22:07It's added intelligence.
22:08It's added intelligence.
22:09Right?
22:10So those are all those few examples of what our interaction fabric does.
22:16Yeah.
22:16And how it elevates the customer experience for an enterprise.
22:20Hmm.
22:21Okay.
22:21So elevated customer experience, which I spoke about earlier also.
22:25Right?
22:25So this is the third pillar.
22:26And I think the fourth and important pillar is the services.
22:31Okay.
22:32When I say services, it could be the managed services or it could be the transformation services.
22:37Mm-hmm.
22:37Right?
22:38So I can come sell a cybersecurity solution to you and I walk away.
22:46Mm-hmm.
22:46Is that cybersecurity is an evolving field.
22:50Yeah.
22:51The threat vectors are changing every day.
22:54The hackers are getting intelligent by the day.
22:56So it needs an expert to be hand-holding you all the time in that journey.
23:04It's not your core job to be doing analysis or getting global threat intelligence into your
23:12enterprise base to protect your assets.
23:14Okay.
23:14It's my job.
23:15Mm-hmm.
23:15So I offer it as a service.
23:17So those are the services which we offer on top of all our previously mentioned three pillars.
23:26Let's talk about the ambition of Tata Communications a little bit.
23:30What are like typical growth markets for you?
23:34Middle East has been one of the growth markets which we have looked at.
23:40There have been extensive investments which have come in from our end into the Middle East.
23:46We were the ones who built our, we call it the TGN, Tata Global Network Submarine Cable, into the Gulf.
23:54You know, we came all the way from Singapore to Bombay.
23:58From Mumbai we came to Oman, Oman to UAE, UAE to Qatar, Qatar to Bahrain, Bahrain to Saudi.
24:04So, and then we also have infrastructures in the Red Sea, etc.
24:09And multiple of them, not one.
24:12So there are significant investments which have gone into this region and they will continue to grow.
24:18Everyone is talking about AI, but beyond the hype, where are businesses actually seeing real value today?
24:26That's a good question.
24:27I think if I have to, again, simplify AI for the enterprises, that's what we do for a living.
24:36And I already mentioned to you that, you know, the challenges which the enterprises face today are,
24:43one, obviously, how do they keep the operational efficiency of the organization unimpacted?
24:48How do they scale at speed, you know, and how do they make sure that, you know, their network is
24:59resilient, etc.?
24:59I think there are two more things which the enterprises face today as challenges.
25:07And one of them is, we talked about the complexity, right?
25:12As you add more applications into your ecosystem, as you connect to multiple clouds, because, you know, there are multiple
25:20clouds today.
25:21And every cloud has its own strength.
25:24Yeah.
25:24Google, GCP has its own strength.
25:27AWS has, Amazon has its own strength.
25:31Oracle, and you name it, you know.
25:33And there is no one size fits all.
25:36So, an enterprise has to go for multiple cloud environments to host their instances, right?
25:42That's one.
25:43And obviously, on top of it, all the AI applications, etc., which are coming in.
25:48So, this managing the complexity is another, or I would say the fourth biggest challenge an enterprise faces.
25:57And what they also face today as one of the fifth challenges, which I should bring up, is the visibility
26:06of their network.
26:07You know, I don't know, again, giving an analogy, does the CIO of, say, Khaleesh Times know how many infrastructure
26:19or how many network elements we have in this office or otherwise across Khaleesh Times, right?
26:24And are they end of life?
26:27Are they performing well?
26:29Have they to be reconfigured?
26:31Are there new updates of firewalls to be installed in those, etc.?
26:35So, unless you know what you have to do, you are again creating vulnerability into your network, right?
26:42So, if you know it, you can fix it.
26:44Right.
26:45So, that's forgiven, right?
26:46So, coming back to AI, and if I have to just simplify it into three pillars, to say, you know,
26:55again, the first is, again, the infrastructure, the GPUs, the data centers, you know, all the physical stuff which has
27:06to be in place to make sure the applications are up and running, right?
27:10The second thing is the application, which we talked about, and the application could be, you know, an AI application
27:18or a bot or a chatbot or whatever else, right, which the enterprises are bringing into their network to make
27:24sure that, and they vary from enterprise to enterprise.
27:29B2B IT environment will be very different to a B2C IT environment, and aviation will be very different to a
27:36petrochemical and so on and so forth, right?
27:38That's why I say we fit, our digital fabric fits in all these environments.
27:45So, that's the second one.
27:46The third is, which I mentioned earlier also, which the enterprises face as a challenge, is the visibility of the
27:53network and how can you automate it.
27:56More automation, more visibility is something which we also offer as data communication and something which an enterprise needs for
28:05sure, right?
28:06So, these are, at a high level, the three pillars or the three ways in which AI adoption can be
28:14enabled.
28:15And it's needless to say that, you know, the people who will adopt AI in the fastest way will always
28:25and mandatorily have a unified digital infrastructure and a secure infrastructure.
28:31Without that, it's not possible.
28:33You may do a lot of things.
28:35It'll all get broken up.
28:37It'll create vulnerabilities for you.
28:39But having a unified, digital, resilient infrastructure is something which is required if you want to have faster AI adoption.
28:48And that AI adoption is inevitable, as I mentioned.
28:50Yeah.
28:50Speaking of AI, what's one AI trend you think people are overestimating?
28:54And what do you think one AI trend that people are underestimating?
28:58I think what people are probably overestimating is that AI may solve everything for you and it'll ultimately replace humans,
29:11which I think is an overstatement, right?
29:15We have seen in our own organization, you know, last five years we've been in the AI adoption mode and
29:22we'll continue to be in that journey forever.
29:25We've not seen AI replacing humans.
29:29Rather, we need a different skill set of people managing that AI and the complexity for us.
29:35Rather than, you know, I remove 100 people, I have an AI app in place that hasn't happened.
29:42So I think that's an overestimation.
29:45Rather, you need to have people upskilling to learn how to...
29:48So that's why what we do in our organization is upskill our existing and also hire new to take care
29:57of the new AI stuff, which we are adopting and bringing on the table for us as for our own
30:02consumption and also for offering it to our.
30:04And this has also come through acquisitions, you know, which we were not forced to do, but it was need
30:11of the hour for us to do acquiring AI companies.
30:15We acquired Commotion recently.
30:19We acquired Calera in the past on the interaction side.
30:23And in the media side, we acquired Switch in US.
30:26So we are also bringing organizations together, bringing new skill sets into the organization.
30:33And again, as I said, if AI has to remove people or reduce people is a wrong notion and overestimation.
30:43What we are underestimating is that how fast can enterprise adopt AI, right?
30:49When I say and I would say it has to be faster than otherwise.
30:56We gone are the days when you can be in the catch-up mode.
30:58You can't be.
31:00And all of this, again, brings me back to my point that, you know, if you don't have that digital
31:08fabric, it could be from anyone.
31:09It could be from Tata Communications.
31:11It could be from anyone who offers this kind of a proposition.
31:15Unless you have that kind of a secure, resilient, global, borderless, digital fabric in place, your AI adoption cannot be
31:25fast-tracked.
31:26And it has to be fast-tracked.
31:28Okay.
31:29So you suggest for companies, for them to fast-track that process.
31:33Fast-track the AI adoption, either for their own use or for the others, for their end customers.
31:37So if you are saying no, my legacy systems are good enough, I think gone are those days.
31:44So you cannot be doing that.
31:46And also, I think one piece of advice for all my CIO friends, the legacy systems and the network which
31:55runs those legacy systems have to be seriously looked at.
31:59But the scale and the mindset in which this region operates or the enterprises of this region operates is amazingly
32:07different and very, very fast-forward in that sense, right?
32:11So, and people have already reached a stage of how can you bring me operational efficiency if I adopt AI?
32:19Forget about fast-tracking adoptions.
32:22There are certain enterprises who have already adopted AI.
32:25And now they're saying, okay, I was doing this with 100 agents, my 100 agents, a contact center, I'm talking
32:31about the interaction fabric, the 100 agents were, are still doing, you know, things.
32:36But now I have AI tokens or the AI agents.
32:40So now the AI tokens are expensive.
32:43Yeah.
32:43Help me optimize the AI tokens as well.
32:46I see.
32:46So that is the level of conversations which we are now having in the market.
32:50Okay.
32:50Not that I'll give you 100 AI tokens, 100 AI agents and chatbots.
32:55He's telling me, help me optimize that because that is where my operational efficiency will also come in.
33:00I want to adopt more and I want to use my 100 physical agents for some more productive work.
33:05I don't want to remove them as well because I'm adding my, building my ecosystem.
33:09So it's parallelly getting built as we speak.
33:12So I think that that's a good challenge to have for us as well.
33:15We have started thinking on those lines.
33:17We are providing solutions there as well.
33:19But I think all the MyCIO friends, they have to fast track their AI adoption.
33:24Yeah.
33:25And probably the only way to do it is have a global, again, reiterating global resilient and, you know, a
33:33digital infrastructure in place, secure infrastructure in place, which is where, you know, people like us will come and add
33:39value to as partners to them.
33:41So you've already kind of mentioned it and you've touched upon this, but if you could give a CEO or
33:46a CIO one piece of advice, what would it be?
33:50The one bit of advice is fast track your AI adoption.
33:53Okay.
33:54Fast track it no matter what.
33:56Otherwise, you'll be in a catch up mode at all times, which is not what, see, this is a developed
34:05region or a developed country per se, right?
34:08I would compare this with the US.
34:12Obviously, US is scale, bigger scale, but otherwise, even if it is, we've not seen gigawatts of capacities built elsewhere.
34:22It's being built in the Middle East.
34:24You know, probably the, it's already built by, you know, the likes, the big guys already.
34:29So that's why I'm saying this region has leaped forward into, you know, something big, which they have already built
34:37and they are attracting those invest, those kind of investments.
34:40And I think an enterprise or a CIO or a CEO has to be aligned with that thought process of
34:48the government, what the government wants to do and what kind of investments they are bringing in.
34:53And more so, not even a government push, you know, what are the consumers asking for?
34:58If the consumer is still asking for a legacy stuff, fine, your networks can continue to be in a legacy
35:04model, right?
35:05But if the consumer is asking for something more, and if you are not able to do it, there are
35:11others in the town who can do it.
35:12Yeah, be flexible.
35:13Be flexible.
35:14You cannot be losing market share.
35:16So, again, that ROI modeling, what we do with our customers, we sit with the CIOs, we show them the
35:23return on investment, per se, of fast tracking AI, bringing AI into their ecosystem, and how much of ROI, in
35:33how many months you will recover your investments, etc., is something which we are doing.
35:37And we're happy to be engaging with the CIOs, CXOs, you know, and we are already connected to a lot
35:46of them in the region.
35:47So, if we are sitting here three years from now, what do you think would have changed the most in
35:53the way businesses operate?
35:55I think the businesses would have become more intelligent, more secure, more agile.
36:00Also, we didn't talk about agility, but agility is equally more important for an enterprise.
36:08And I think just like I would say the digital fabric has become a norm now for, as I mentioned,
36:16you know, the Google Maps or the electricity example, which I gave you.
36:20So, I think AI will become a norm for, I mean, people will say, okay, AI, what's more, what's new?
36:32It's already there with me, my systems are automated with AI already, I'm already using these use cases and adopting
36:39this, this is my roadmap as to how I'd want to do more.
36:42So, it will be more of an outcome-based discussion going forward.
36:46And the evolution of AI, right?
36:48It's not just about whether you should adopt, it's more about like keeping up with the evolution of it.
36:53Yeah, so keeping up with any technology, you know, evolution or innovation is mandatory for an enterprise, right?
37:01So, that we will anyway see three years or five years from today.
37:04But what will become a norm or forgiven is not the infrastructure anymore.
37:09It will anyways exist and will have to exist because there's no alternative to it.
37:13But AI will also become a norm.
37:15But the use cases and the outcome of those use cases which are riding on the AI, now we are
37:21talking layer eight, probably after three years, is what people will be talking about.
37:27And I think the commercial discussions also will revolve around outcome.
37:35Then, you know, a managed service or I'll give you things for $10,000 a month or that kind.
37:41It will be more of an outcome-based remuneration for the vendors as well.
37:46Because that's what the customers will also demand for.
37:49So, talk to us about Tata Communications within the media sphere.
37:54What can, is there anything that we as like the general public would have recognized, you know, in terms of
38:00what events you would have covered?
38:02One of my favorite topics, by the way, thanks for bringing that up.
38:06Tata Communications is a dominant media and entertainment services provider.
38:13Let me call it, we call it the MES segment, media and entertainment services segment.
38:18And by virtue of it, we do 75% of the sporting events in the world.
38:27You'll be surprised with that number.
38:29Wow.
38:29So, including the famous Formula One, all the 17, 18 tracks are run on our network.
38:37Again, it's a digital fabric story.
38:38Okay, yeah.
38:39It's a digital fabric story.
38:41Why Formula One has been with us for more than a decade, I would say, I think 12 years running
38:46in a row.
38:47Oh, really?
38:47Is because of the strength of our digital fabric, our global network, which we have built for them.
38:53It's a purpose-built network.
38:55It's a purpose-built network for them because media, you know, even a flick of a second, if you're watching
39:02a sporting event, even a football match, for example.
39:05FIFA in Qatar was done by us.
39:07Okay.
39:07The FIFA recently, which happened, was done by Tata Communications.
39:13We do MotoGP.
39:14We do SailGP.
39:15We do DP World Golf Tournament.
39:19Right.
39:19So, sorry to interrupt, but for the people who don't understand, when you say cover a sports event, what do
39:25you mean exactly?
39:25Okay, so these events are typically global in nature, as you know, right?
39:29So, for example, Formula One, what they earlier used to do was they used to do the video production on
39:36the site.
39:37They do it in Abu Dhabi.
39:39When they have the race in Bahrain, they do it in Bahrain.
39:41When they have the race in Jeddah, they do it in Jeddah, and so on and so forth.
39:44There are about six tracks in Middle East, Central Asia itself, which we cover in my territory.
39:52So, we told them, guys, why do you do this thing, right?
39:57Because they fly in expensive infrastructure along, the cars anyways have to come in, the Formula One cars from different
40:04teams have to come in, which is understood.
40:07Why does the infrastructure have to travel all the time between different destinations?
40:11They were using multiple Boeing jets to transport digital infrastructure from here to there for the video production.
40:18Okay.
40:18So, they centralized everything into UK.
40:22And what we do as Tata Communications is using our digital fabric, all the feeds from the tracks, all the
40:29feeds from the cars are taken back to the Formula One centralized data center, video production center in the UK.
40:38Oh, wow.
40:39And then from, it doesn't stop there.
40:41So, it is, this could be said that it's very easy, you know, you build multiple pipes between, digital pipes
40:48between Abu Dhabi and UK and you're done.
40:50No, it's not that way.
40:51Then that content has to be distributed across the world.
40:56For example, if it's in Spain, it has to go with Spanish ad ad words.
41:01It has to go.
41:02Subtitles.
41:03Subtitles.
41:03Or the ads also.
41:05The ads are all digital ads.
41:07Pertaining to the country that they're in.
41:09Pertaining to the country where it is broadcasted.
41:11So, all that is done by us as one of their technology.
41:14Is it live?
41:14Is it a live feed or is it produced?
41:16It's a live feed.
41:17Right.
41:17And it cannot have latency.
41:19So, for example, if a match is or a race is being seen in Spain, it has to be in
41:26the same, not even milliseconds of a difference has to be same in India.
41:29Yeah, wow.
41:30Wherever it is being viewed.
41:31Okay.
41:32And it's not only, again, country.
41:35It's also the devices.
41:38Sometimes you're seeing it on your iPad or you're seeing it on your mobile.
41:41It has to be made compatible for that device.
41:44It's, again, all done by us.
41:46So, it's part of our OTT platform.
41:48So, that's where I mentioned when we acquired Switch in the US.
41:53Yeah.
41:53It was, it came in with these kind of capabilities.
41:56So, that's the amazing strength of a purpose-built digital fabric, which we created for Formula One.
42:03And we do the sporting events.
42:06We do the biggest cricketing event in India, which is called IPL.
42:10The World Cup was done by us.
42:12So, they're all live streaming.
42:14All live streaming.
42:15Which is a live streaming service.
42:16And also, on top of it, what we have added, again, we are going application.
42:21Now, this was infrastructure.
42:22I mentioned the second layer is the application.
42:25On the application, you also convert the language from one country to another online.
42:33You know, in real, not online, real time.
42:36So, the same guy who is speaking in English, you know, as a commentator, he will be available in the
42:44Spanish language by default.
42:46Yeah.
42:47Using our application or the solution which we are offering.
42:50So, it has to be very seamless.
42:52It has to be very robust, resilient.
42:55Again, vulnerable to a cyber attack, for sure, because it only runs for a few hours in a day.
43:02It runs for three days.
43:03The first day is the practice, the second is the qualifying, and the third is the final race.
43:07Yeah.
43:08What if a cyber attack on that one, even for a minute, will cost them millions of dollars and penalties
43:15on, you know.
43:15Yeah, it's quite risky.
43:17Quite a risky one.
43:17So, I think that's something which we take pride in, in our media and entertainment segment.
43:24And we say that, you know, if you can do it for Formula One, you can do it for anyone.
43:28Yeah.
43:28The fact that you did it for FIFA was amazing also.
43:30We did FIFA in Qatar as well.
43:31And even the large broadcasting companies like Al Jazeera, for example.
43:37Oh, wow.
43:37NBC, for example.
43:38Okay.
43:39So, these are the examples of companies which we serve across the globe in terms of, you know, connecting their
43:48bureau offices, their regional offices in US or etc.
43:52Again, a purpose-built digital fabric, global digital fabric for them, borderless, secure, all of it what we talked about.
44:01It's a very important sector that you cover.
44:03It's a very important sector and it's very time-sensitive.
44:07You, it cannot have a delay.
44:09It cannot be delayed for delivery and even during the event, it cannot be delayed, you know, for even milliseconds.
44:16It's high risk.
44:16It's very high risk.
44:17Well, great.
44:18This has been a very insightful conversation.
44:20Thank you so much for being with us today and, you know, giving us the heads up of what would
44:26be happening in...