India has the building blocks to influence global standards in AI infrastructure: Neelakantan Venkataraman, Tata Communications

As India races toward an AI-driven future, one truth is becoming unmistakable: the nation’s leadership won’t be defined by the number of GPUs it owns, but by how intelligently and inclusively it builds its digital foundations. Few leaders understand this shift as clearly as Neelakantan Venkataraman, Vice President and Global Head of Cloud, AI and Edge Computing Business at Tata Communications, who sits at the intersection of cloud, connectivity, and AI innovation.

At a national level, initiatives like the IndiaAI Compute Platform, which has already empanelled 34,000+ GPUs for academia and research, signal India’s intent to democratize compute access. Yet, as Venkataraman emphasizes, the real breakthrough will come from shared, federated frameworks, strong public-private models, and deep collaboration across telecoms, hyperscalers, and data centers—ushering in an era of AI-as-a-Service that lowers entry barriers for innovators across the country.

In this exclusive interaction ...