Wipro to invest $1 bn in AI over three years

IT services firm Wipro Ltd will invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next three years. The investment will help the company advance its foundation in AI, data and analytics capabilities, build new consulting capabilities and more, Wipro said in a statement on Wednesday.

The company has also launched a service—Wipro ai360, an AI-first innovation ecosystem, and said it would train all of its about 250,000 employees on AI over the next 12 months.

The announcement comes almost a week after rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said it planned to train 25,000 engineers to get them certified on Microsoft’s Azure Open AI.

“Artificial Intelligence is a fast-moving field,” said Thierry Delaporte, chief executive and managing director at Wipro. “Especially with the emergence of generative AI, we expect a fundamental shift up ahead, for all industries. New business models, new ways of working, and new challenges, too. This is exactly why Wipro’s ai360 ecosystem places responsible AI operations at the heart of all our AI work.”

The platform will bring together 30,000 people working on data analytics and AI along with the tech ecosystem from Wipro’s four major business lines. Further, with ai360, it will continue to provide more customized, ongoing training for employees in AI-specialized roles, the company said.

Wipro will also look to invest in “cutting-edge” startups through Wipro Ventures. It is also going to launch a seed accelerator program for startups focussed on generative AI, to train them to become enterprise-ready.

In May this year, Wipro announced it has partnered with Google to offer generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to enterprises across sectors. The IT services firm will also train 20,000 employees on Google Cloud’s generative AI technologies.

The company already has a Generative AI CoE, where it works alongside technology partners, and academic institutions driving research in advanced areas of AI to help customers leverage these technological advances to gain a competitive market edge.

Other Indian IT majors, from TCS to Infosys and Tech Mahindra, are also heavily focusing on AI. TCS’ Generative AI leverages Google Cloud’s generative AI services to design and deploy custom-tailored business solutions. Infosys too launched its AI-first offering Topaz in May this year. Tech Mahindra also unveiled its gen AI studio to help enterprises bootstrap generative AI in April 2023.

Companies across the world too, from banks, healthcare companies to big tech, have accelerated their investments in AI in the last one year and especially after the launch of ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot by Microsoft-backed OpenAI took the world by storm in late 2022.