India has a large technology talent pool, but retaining skilled engineers, researchers and founders will be crucial as global companies compete for AI expertise
India’s ability to retain its top technology talent will be critical to its ambitions of becoming a major artificial intelligence hub, Salesforce chief digital evangelist Vala Afshar said.
Global technology companies are competing for highly skilled engineers and other technology professionals as investment in AI grows. Afshar said there has always been a strong pull to global technology centres, where companies compete for the best talent. Afshar made the comments in an interview with The Economic Times on the sidelines of Salesforce’s Dreamforce event in San Francisco.
The movement of Indian technology talent overseas is not new. But the way Indian software companies are building their businesses has changed, Afshar said.
Indian founders once typically kept most of their teams in India while sending a founder or senior executive to the US to handle sales and business development. Increasingly, founders are choosing to establish themselves in the US at an earlier stage and build teams closer to global customers and investors.
That shift could make talent retention more important for India as it seeks to develop a stronger domestic AI ecosystem.
India’s AI opportunity
India has a large technology workforce and a growing startup ecosystem. This gives the country a strong base to develop AI products and companies for global markets.
More from BusinessHowever, the challenge is not only to train more workers. India will also need to retain experienced engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs who can build and scale AI businesses.
The competition for such talent is intensifying as companies invest in generative AI, AI agents, data and automation.
Salesforce has itself been expanding its AI focus in India. The company said in June that it aims to equip one million learners in India with AI skills by 2030 through partnerships with universities, government bodies and industry.
India is also becoming an important market for AI adoption. A Salesforce survey released in July found that Indian workers were 45 per cent more likely than the global average to say AI was part of their core workflow.
