India is set to witness the world's largest roll-out of 5G infrastructure with multi-billion-dollar being spent by the country's leading telcos over the next several years, accordi꧃ng to Syed Shahid Hussain, Managing Partner, Financial Services Sector, Asia Pacific, at IBM Consulting.
Additio෴nally, the government is ex🌼pected to lead in developing the India stack, a network building process that would cover every segment of the economy being digitised with the latest advanced technologies, he told PTI at the Singapore Fintech Festival last week, held from November 2-4, 2022.
"This is a big play," he said of the advanced technologies adoption in India, with IBM Consulting joining international technology groups participating in the large-scale development over several years through strategic partnerships with telcos such as Bharti Airtel a🧔nd Reliance G𓂃roup.
"We plan to work with Indian telc൲os, where we have strategic partnerships like Bharti Airtel to bring secured hybrid cloud services through the 5G network to national enterprises. The agreement with Bharti Airtel is there to launch it," said Shahid, the Singapore-based IBM executive.
"For this, both the parties will hꦓave to spend billions of dollars. Huge amoℱunt of money is being spent by the stakeholders in this ongoing process and it will take over a couple of years," he underlined.
"We are particularly working on securing hybrid cloud services through the 5G network." Hybr𝄹id cloud is a major shift in the evolution ওof enterprise IT.
The next biܫg thing is to create India stack for different sectors of the Indian economy, he pointed out.
India stack is a set of APIs that allows governments, businesses, startups and developers to utilise a unique digital infrastructure to solve India's hard pr♔oblems towards presence-less, paperless and cashless servic𝓀e delivery.
Shahid says the government is to lead the India stack and incentivise banks and other stakeholders in the ecosys🎉tem for the benefits of consumers.
India has some 800 million mobile phone💛 users and the number is growing, forming the base for the fast growing digital economy.
On project basis, Shahid said IBM and Bank of Baroda will ex꧂pand the 'Baroda Kisan' app, a one-stop shop for all the needs of the agriculture and farming community. It was launched in September 2019.
Agriculture sector is a high priority area of development for the gover💃nment which is committed to raising the income of farmers in the coming years.
All the banks k🉐now that the traditional banki𒁏ng services will be different in four to five years down the line, he pointed out.
♒Farmers, for example, will go to the platform which provides end-to-end services for the agricu𒆙lture industry.
"We are trying to get all the stakeholders, on the three-year old Barod෴a Kisan platform, such as suppliers of fert🧸ilizers. With these stakeholders on board, price discovery can be better and farmers can go and buy from the best supplier," said the IIM Ahmedabad alumni.
In♏ the future, the farmers' needs will be on apps and metaverse, making it easier and efficient to source services and supplies, even farm equipment.
Anotheꦇr successful startup par🐎tnership by IBM in India is the SBI YONO (You Only Need One) app, valued at USD 40 billion.
YONO gives SBI an enormous market advantage, combining services, products and features into one mobile app with a platform that could inte💦grate dat🐓a across third-party products and streamline the customer experience.
"These are two of the most successful startups by IBM and partners in India," said Shahid who has spent the first 15 years of his over 20 years' experience working in India.
