The role of the CIO in the emerging technology landscape is to focus on the core

Anil Nama, CIO- Cloud4C & CtrlS Datacenters

“CtrlS, as a data center provider serves one of the key components, which is powering the hyperscale phenomenon in India. Cloud 4C, on the other hand, is a cloud service provider and an MSP. The world is producing 272 zettabytes of data. The Gen AI market is exploding, the ChatGPT that we use are in our professional capacity. I still can vouch that there are very few professional ChatGPT users who use it for their personal capacity. Now where would it make an impact? It is talking about a potential market worth of $15.7 trillion, and India's dream is five to six trillion dollars. We are talking about an impact of $15.7 trillion out of which, $3.8 trillion can be accrued to manufacturing sectors. This means that this interpretation or engagement of human and machine collaboration, which is to  better our manufacturing processes, creating goods that are consumed by the end user and are manufactured in the right way, is one of the major focuses of AI.

The second segment is drugs; we saw during Covid how scientists worldwide tested, developed and got the vaccines out successfully within such a short span of time. Therefore, I believe the future of molecular research, around drug discovery, simulations, around using digital twins for testing, is where AI is going to make a big impact. And the third impact will be on the convenience of the end user to use consumer goods. For instance, the simple mobile phone is an example to you today. Today a mobile phone works wonders as you can operate your email application, a banking application in it; it also works as a camera and it is also a multimedia device to communicate with the rest of the world. This ease of use is being benefited by enhancing the intelligence of a device which at one point was only for voice communication. As the CIO, our role in this emerging tech landscape is to focus on the core, and drive the maximum for our businesses. If you just take a keyword analysis, the topmost keyword coming out is generative AI. There are several priorities of the CIOs that have to go in to adopt this AI.

Firstly, a CIO has to understand where it makes an impact. Second, he/she has to create a business case to explain it to other people how it impacts their business processes. Finally, a CIO has to have a learning environment in which he has the requisite skill sets to manage those systems and then deliver the results.

Talking about Agile AI, it could be the implementation of chatbots. Today, whether it is the Indian Railways or a private company, or whether it's a bank, everybody uses a chatbot. There is no longer the practice of calling a call center and holding on to the phone to get your queries answered.”