“When you think of India as part of the supply chain, its potential and its consistency are enormous,” Altabef told ET. “If you’re like us, a technology company, our inventory is really the talent of our people.”
The country provides a unique combination of scale, quality and energy, said Altabef, who was on an India visit in September. He added that about 40% of Unisys’ work is done here.
The Blue Bell, Pennsylvania-headquartered company offers cloud, data and AI, digital workplace, logistics and enterprise computing solutions. It has operated in India for about the last 25 years and the largest share of its workforce, a quarter, is in India.
The company expects to open a new office in Gurugram by next year, adding to its five existing offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Gurugram.
“India is very important to Unisys. Our goal was to do everything we do as a company in India, and I think we’re there now,” he said, adding that many of its leading research and products are coming out of India.
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“I would expect that as far as the company continues to grow, the footprint in India will grow at least as fast as that – probably faster.”The company logged a revenue of about $2 billion in the financial year 2023, growing at 1.8% year-on-year. Like many other businesses, Unisys is investing in AI.
It has 125 AI projects underway, is embedding AI across its offerings, and has seen about a 50% productivity boost in application development.
The key for advancement, however, is to marry AI with quantum computing, Altabef said.
Unisys sees an opportunity in quantum annealing for post-quantum cryptography, which will enhance protection of assets. It has also leveraged quantum computing in air traffic logistics optimisation – an area that earlier, with classical computing, could not get past the sub-optimal efficiency levels, Altabef said. By early next year, this will be expanded to trains and trucks.
The company taps into India’s AI and quantum computing expertise to build such solutions as well, Altabef said. In terms of company-wide upskilling efforts, he noted that a higher percentage of the Indian employees had taken the more advanced AI courses than anywhere else in the world.
On challenges, Altabef highlighted the competition for top talent and the enormous energy needed to run AI programmes – a problem seen in other parts of the world as well, he noted.
He also noted issues of commute times and internet bandwidth for those who work in hybrid modes.
The company is committed to hiring from about 200 universities it has forged a relationship with over the years, Altabef said. Further, the company’s annual ten-month industry-academia contest, the Unisys Innovation Programme, has resulted in a significant number of internship and employment opportunities for students.
Last year, as much as 50% of submissions from many universities taking part in the programme were AI-related, Altabef added.