Google Cloud India: Bikram Singh Bedi Talks India's Potential And Growth Opportunities

As India's public and private sectors embrace digital technologies to drive innovation, Google Cloud has emerged as a pivotal player in the country's rapidly expanding cloud marketplace. In an exclusive interview with Bikram Singh Bedi, Managing Director at Google Cloud, India region, BW Businessworld delves into the immense opportunities India presents for Google Cloud amidst its ongoing digital transformation. Bedi sheds light on the company's strategic focus, its impactful contributions to various sectors, and the emphasis placed on research and development from India. Excerpts:

What does the Indian market offer as an opportunity for Google Cloud?

India is in the middle of a massive digital transformation with both the public and private sector willing to bet big on digital technologies as they embark on their transformation journey. For Google Cloud, India continues to be one of the key and fastest-growth markets. Our customers recognise the differentiated value we bring to them with our innovative solutions and exceptional service delivery. Our success is backed by our very-abled sales force and strong partner ecosystem which is helping us grow.

In India, we’re helping customers build a digital-first future. In the last three years, we have partnered with several major customers including Apollo 24/7, Bikanerwala, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Ergo, Reliance Jio, Flipkart, Mahindra, Adani, Fancode, Bharti Airtel, RBL Bank, Cryptowire, Wipro, ShareChat, and others.

Given the diminished growth of IT spending growth globally due to macroeconomic conditions, has India become more important for Google Cloud in 2023 and 2024?

According to the recent report by Gartner, IT spending is projected to total USD 4.6 trillion in 2023, an increase of 5.5 per cent from 2022 despite the continued global economic turbulence and cloud is at the core of innovation across industries and verticals.

India continues to be an important market for us and is one of the fastest growing cloud marketplaces in the world. We have seen a steady rise in cloud adoption across the country with Google Cloud helping organisations move to the cloud and digitise. Our Cloud offerings are now a significant part of our focus in India and we are partnering with businesses more deeply than ever before on this agenda. Businesses of all sizes continue to embrace new cloud-based digital applications and collaboration tools for seamless communication and processes in a hybrid-work environment.

What kind of R&D does Google Cloud drive from India?

As we build for the world, India has become a very strategic market for us. Our Cloud teams in India are heavily invested in garnering deep technical expertise across Data Cloud Intelligence, Open Infrastructure Cloud, Collaboration Cloud, and Trusted Cloud, which cover all aspects of Google’s Cloud product areas. The team in India along with global teams focus on infrastructure and developer productivity; building public cloud, private cloud, multi-cloud, and Edge Cloud to enable cloud computing; Workspace and collaboration tools to increase productivity; and enhancing Cloud security.

What sectors are your offerings gaining traction in India?

Cloud adoption has accelerated across sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, FSI, M&E and education and this just solidifies the need of organizations to choose cloud services. India is at the forefront of cloud adoption, and we expect cloud infrastructure to expand even faster for rapid digital innovation.

Organisations across every industry are shifting to digital solutions, turning to cloud technology to solve complex business challenges and explore unique opportunities amidst changing customer demands and regulatory frameworks. 

Google Cloud is driving Generative AI offerings for multiple mega Indian IT companies through partnerships. What is its vision for such associations in FY24 and beyond?

Google Cloud Consulting launched a series of learning journeys targeted at different audiences available at no cost. In partnership with Boston Consulting Group, Google Cloud will offer high-touch training to help c-suite leaders of Fortune 1000 companies reap the full, transformative benefits of generative AI, while maintaining responsible development and deployment. 

More widely, we will provide a number of on demand learning paths and credential programs that will be open to Google Cloud customers and partners, as well as to technologists in the developer community.

Secondly, we launched new generative AI consulting offerings designed to help customers activate their AI plans. The offerings help customers discover trends with AI-enhanced search engines and assistive experiences, summarise information from large volumes of content, automate time-consuming and expensive business processes, and assist in creating content that's more personalised. These new offerings give customers hands-on experience with production ready solutions using their data and aligned with a practical use case for their organization. They are designed to help organisations quickly implement generative AI solutions relevant to their business. 

How is Google Cloud helping upskill youth and professionals in India as skill requirements change and evolve?

India has some of the best engineers and developers in the world and that’s what excites us. We are keen to make investments in skilling and making cloud technologies accessible. 

Google Cloud learners in India has grown almost seven-fold in the last two years. The demand for qualified experts is huge: the two highest paid certifications of any cloud provider are the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect and the Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer. 

Google Cloud launched the first cohort of the Google Cloud Computing Foundations with Kubernetes course in collaboration with FutureSkills Prime (a MeitY and NASSCOM Digital Skilling Initiative), to equip participants with skills they need for a career in a digital workplace. The course will enable participants to learn concepts and have hands-on training (via Google Cloud Skills Boost platform) to practice their learning. Post completion, participants will earn a course completion certificate and Industry recognised skill badges

Google Cloud also announced its Solving for India: Hackathon Series in collaboration with AMD across 100 engineering colleges of India. The hackathon series aims to provide students with exposure to business challenges, give access to leading edge technologies from Google Cloud and AMD powered instances and offer a talent platform to showcase their coding skills and creativity. 

Could you tell us about your work with the startups in the country?

Indian startups are ready to build for the world and we continue partnering closely with them in their digital transformation agenda with the right technology and services from Google Cloud. We have also recently onboarded many startups as our customers on Google Cloud including Polygon Labs, Lentra, Netcore Cloud, FanCode among others who are utilising our vast range of services to scale and communicate more effectively to its customers. 

Additionally, Open source is Google’s DNA and hence it is super useful for developers in startups and digital native companies. 

Any major development we can look forward to in 2023?

Google Cloud is here to support businesses, help them get smarter with data, deploy faster, connect more easily with people and customers throughout the globe, and protect everything that matters to their businesses. We also continue to support our customers with people and education programs. We remain consistent with our clear strategy with focus on six priority industries: Financial Services; Telco, Media & Entertainment, and Gaming; Retail and CPG; Healthcare & Life Sciences; Manufacturing & Industrial; and Public Sector. This focus is helping us best serve our customers.

Furthermore, this year we’re on a mission to deliver a new cloud experience that’s personalised and intent-driven, through integration of generative AI foundation models in Google cloud capabilities and advancement of Google workspace. Our goal is to continue to be bold and responsible in our approach and partner with others to improve our AI models so they are safe and helpful for everyone.