Transformer by Mint | IITs see ₹35-lakh chip-design packages, TCS stumbles on AI

This prosperity came in the form of annual salaries upward of ₹50 lakh as the likes of Google, Microsoft and other specialised firms started hiring engineers for core roles – not just service and maintenance. Attracted by this, families would put their lives on hold, mortgage their properties, and go to extreme lengths to ensure that their children bagged one of these jobs.

But over time, these offers started drying up. A surplus of talent meant engineers weren’t in a position to exercise leverage, and the top jobs became even rarer. Companies also started focusing on hiring engineers with some experience rather than freshers, and the median salaries at engineering colleges began to dip. Through the pandemic, hiring itself began to slow.

Last week, Pratishtha Bagai and Devina Sengupta wrote about how annual packages upward of ₹35 lakh are back at some of the top IITs and NITs, thanks to semiconductor companies.

At least five institutes that Mint spoke with said the likes of Nvidia, Intel and Applied Materials are rolling out reasonably generous job offers at India’s top engineering colleges. Semiconductors, it seems, are the next gold rush in India as companies scramble to capture India’s top chip-design talent.

This week, we went behind the scenes of a talent war among top tech firms that are looking to hire the right freshers for chip-related engineering and willing to pay top dollar for them.

Here’s what we found.

Largest IT recruiter falters on AI

You can’t talk about engineering colleges and jobs in India without talking about Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest tech services outsourcing company and has the largest army of tech talent in India. Naturally, it has always been India’s biggest mass-recruiter at engineering colleges.

Now, it appears that the company has hit a critical roadblock. TCS has already announced it is laying off nearly 12,000 engineers at the middle to senior levels. Jas Bardia and Varun Sood reported for Mint last week that TCS just can’t seem to get its act together on AI, compounding these troubles.

The company has reshuffled its AI business vertical three times in the past three years, most recently under ‘AI.cloud’. This vertical, too, has seen top executives, who were TCS long-termers, leave the company in quick succession. One thing’s for sure: as far as AI is concerned, TCS just can’t seem to get things right. If this continues much longer, it risks falling far behind on innovation.

Jas and Varun delved deep into the biggest challenge plaguing India’s top IT services company today, and why figuring out how to innovate and build the AI business model is more important to the company than the H-1B visa fee hike.

Gaming ban to face questions

The ban on online real-money games is undoubtedly one of the biggest stories out of India’s technology economy this year. Now, after putting the draft rules of the law out last week, the IT ministry is on the verge of implementing the law banning the sector.

I spoke with five lawyers and top industry executives on what they made of the rules. For context, every law in India comes with a set of rules that explain how it is to be implemented, and the law comes into effect only once these rules are notified.

It turns out various parties are raising questions about whether mandating paperwork for developers to register casual games would stifle foreign investments. These parties have also said that having a committee of already-overburdened bureaucrats to oversee an agile sector like gaming is far from a suitable idea. Consultations for this law will remain open until the end of this month, but senior officials in the know tell me that the Centre is unlikely to make any major changes to the rules before they come into effect.

If you’re keen on making games, or even playing them, here’s what you should know and why.

Muted demand for spectrum

Jatin Grover, Mint’s telecom correspondent, reported last week that for many telecom networks, spectrum auctions have gone grossly unsold in the past. Even as the government pushes telecom operators to acquire more spectrum in light of improving network connectivity across the country, it turns out not enough companies are buying it.

Therefore, to expand the horizon of spectrum auctions, the Centre is now looking at allowing more companies to participate in spectrum auctions. This could be a precursor to increased competition in the Indian telecommunications and internet services industry in the long run. But will it work? For now, consultations are on.

In other news: iPhone Air review, and Zoho’s WhatsApp rival

I reviewed the shiny new iPhone Air. The slimmest iPhone ever feels great in the hand and is shockingly light. There will be times when you’ll miss having a more versatile camera, and eventually, a bigger battery too. But it feels supremely refined and definitely isn’t overly compromised in any way. Should you buy it, though? Here’s what I think.

Zoho’s suite of productivity applications have been in the headlines ever since 24 September, when union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted on X about migrating to it. Now, as its WhatsApp rival Arattai gains more users, it’s facing increasing scrutiny as well, especially about its lack of default end-to-end encryption for messages. Here’s what people have to say about it.

Transformer by Mint is a weekly newsletter that brings India’s most important and interesting technology updates under one umbrella. As the world transforms with every day of innovation, Transformer will keep a tab on the impact that technologies will make in each of our lives. Published every week, the newsletter brings some of India’s tech landscape’s most insightful coverages until date.