While some companies build AI solutions in-house, others rely on partnerships with startups and other tech companies to provide AI services for their clients. Indian IT firms, in particular, predominantly rely on startups and big tech as they believe that investing too much capital in building products is not their niche.
In 2024, leading Indian IT firms like Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, and HCLTech significantly advanced their integration of generative AI into their offerings for providing small language models and also building multi-agent systems for their clients in the upcoming years. Much of this is allegedly achieved by partnering with AI startups with bases in India.
Infosys Leads the Way
Infosys has been at the forefront of this AI integration. Chairman Nandan Nilekani has predicted that while companies will increasingly develop their own specialised AI models to enhance efficiency and productivity, service companies will adopt them for their clients.
At the sidelines of the Meta Build with AI Summit, an Infosys representative told AIM, “We are building industry-wide solutions. For market research, we have built a proof-of-concept, and internally, we are leveraging many Llama models for our AI-first journey.”
In addition to these partnerships with Meta, Microsoft, and even NVIDIA to build models for its clients, Infosys also announced its partnership with Sarvam AI in October to build small language models for banking and IT operations, Infosys Topaz BankingSLM and Infosys Topaz ITOpsSLM.
Infosys also completed the acquisition of 100% of the stake of in-tech for €450 million, which it announced in its Q4FY24 report in April to expand its R&D capabilities.
Infosys Innovation Fund recently also placed its bet on Bengaluru-based oncology precision startup 4baseCare. The startup is pushing to beat cancer with genomics and AI.
TCS and Wipro Invest for Technological Acquisitions
TCS has been involved in significant AI projects, which have contributed to its revenue growth. In June, along with Infosys, Tech Mahindra, and HCLTech, the IT giant partnered with Yellow.ai to build AI solutions. These collaborations aim to use Yellow.AI’s platform to enhance HR and customer service automation solutions.
In March, TCS announced its strategic partnership with SymphonyAI to create predictive and generative AI business applications. SymphonyAI specialises in providing enterprise AI SaaS for financial crime detection and related verticals. Cut to June; the IT firm also partnered with Xerox to improve business outcomes when migrating from legacy data centres to Azure public cloud and integrating generative AI services.
In November, Wipro partnered with RELEX Solutions, a prominent provider of integrated supply chain and retail planning solutions. The aim is to use Wipro’s deep expertise in the retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries alongside RELEX’s AI platform to deliver improved capabilities for demand forecasting, supply chain efficiency, and operational planning.
This came after Wipro announced its alliance with Cyble for AI-driven cybersecurity risk management solutions in August while working closely with its GCC in India.
Moreover, Wipro is investing to strengthen its capabilities across organisations and making bold moves in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and acquiring companies like Capco and Rizing, which have boosted consulting capabilities and simplified the company’s operating model, said Wipro chief Srini Pallia during the Q4 2024 earnings call.
Tech Mahindra’s Love for Startups
Under the leadership of CEO Mohit Joshi, Tech Mahindra is aiming to grow its banking and financial services revenue share to 25% by 2027. Joshi plans to leverage his BFSI expertise to drive this expansion and sees generative AI as an opportunity for the IT sector and the company’s workforce.
In 2024, Tech Mahindra announced several partnerships with AI startups. In April, the company announced a collaboration with Spain-based Atento to deliver generative AI-powered solutions and services to enterprises worldwide.
In May, Tech Mahindra partnered with Zapata Computing Holdings Inc. with the aim of enhancing Zapata AI’s quantum-based generative AI solutions. This collaboration aims to scale Tech Mahindra’s capabilities, offering ‘Scale at Speed’ solutions to drive operational efficiency and improve responsiveness for global Communication Service Providers (CSPs).
In August, Tech Mahindra joined forces with LivePerson, a leader in digital customer conversations, to revolutionise customer engagement in the financial services and healthcare and life sciences (HLS) sectors.
In the same month, Tech Mahindra also collaborated with Horizon3.ai to develop cybersecurity solutions. The partnership integrates Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero platform, which offers autonomous threat detection, AI-powered penetration testing, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) insights into Tech Mahindra’s cybersecurity services.
In September, Tech Mahindra also partnered with Discai, a subsidiary of the KBC Group, to provide an AI-powered anti-money laundering (AML) solution.
HCLTech Provides Solutions to Others
HCLTech is establishing a generative AI technology education and training centre built on IBM’s platform. Along with TCS, in August, the company announced its partnership with Xerox for AI and digital engineering services.
Most recently, in November HCLTech partnered with Inspeq AI, an Irish-Indian technology firm, to help enterprises worldwide responsibly develop and integrate AI applications. The alliance aims to embed a responsible AI (RAI) layer into application development, seamlessly integrating with existing toolchains like Microsoft Co-Pilot, AWS Bedrock, and other business applications.
In June, the company collaborated with Tecnotree to develop 5G-led generative AI solutions for telcos. The aim of the partnership is to bring HCLTech’s AI-based communications technology with Tecnotree’s 5G and AI-based BSS platform.
Apart from investing and partnering with AI startups, HCLTech decided to provide its services to its clients, which it built in partnership with big firms like Intel, SAP, IBM, AWS, Microsoft, and GitHub.
Other Mid-Sized Firms
Mid-sized IT firms are rapidly adopting AI through strategic investments and acquisitions.
LTIMindtree has invested $6 million in Voicing.AI, focusing on enhancing conversational, contextual, and emotional intelligence across over 20 languages. The company also partnered with GitHub to train its workforce.
Meanwhile, Mphasis has launched NeoCrux to improve developer productivity and acquired Silverline to enhance customer experience with conversational AI. Persistent Systems, addressing AI-related privacy concerns, acquired Arrka to strengthen its privacy management platform.
Smaller firms like Happiest Minds and Hexaware have also made AI acquisitions, positioning themselves for the agentic AI revolution. Happiest Minds partnered with MindSculpt in April and with Soroco in February to enhance its AI solutions.
