India rising as Big Tech breaks bank for AI talent
With Meta 's Mark Zuckerberg hunting for top AI talent with $100 million packages, other large tech companies may follow suit and the price of AI talent globally is expected to be pushed up, experts said. India however retains an edge due to the lower cost and may see some jobs being routed here.Indian AI talent generally costs around 15–25% of what companies pay in global hubs like the US, particularly for senior and research-level roles, according to AMS data.Salaries in the US or UK/Europe are almost five times more than the Indian average for similar skill sets, as per Teamlease Digital. For mid-level skills such ML Engineers or Data scientists with experience, the salary difference is about two to three times.'We will continue to see more AI jobs routed to India, especially for engineering, implementation, and mid-tier research roles, as global salary inflation and talent shortages make India's cost-quality equation quite favourable,' said Roop Kaistha, regional managing director-APAC, AMS.India's cost advantage remains meaningful, particularly for execution and scaled development roles in AI, ML Ops, and data engineering, she said.While senior AI researchers in the US attract packages of $500,000 to $1 million or more, in India they earn about Rs 60-80 lakhs annually, as per recruitment firm Adecco.'This (Meta's) offer raises the benchmark rates for this talent worldwide,' said Sunil Chemankotil, country manager for India at recruitment firm Adecco. 'The dual advantage India offers is cost and talent arbitrage - this will help organisations to scale up rapidly.'The country has a growing AI talent pool, particularly in applied AI and engineering, he said.However, India still lags in the top-end of AI R&D talent that is likely to bag the top-dollar packages globally and needs to significantly scale up this kind of talent and expertise, experts said.Today, most AI-related jobs that come to India are in areas like data modelling, annotation and AI/ML integration, said Neeti Sharma, CEO, Teamlease Digital. For India to go up the value chain towards innovation driven roles, we need to make investments in creating a continuously upskilling ecosystem that enables us to get on to core AI innovation.'For advanced research, talent matters more than cost—global companies will pay top dollar for the best people, wherever they are,' Sharma said, adding that migration of jobs to India will continue given the large pool of foundational tech skills needed for AI and that comes at a competitive cost.'Indian talent remains cost-competitive and highly skilled in implementation roles but is only beginning to break into the uppermost tier of global AI R&D leadership,' said Kaistha.In the foreseeable future, and until the startup ecosystem in India matures further, the ultra-elite, $100 million 'superintelligence' researchers will remain concentrated in places like the US, she added.But Indian-origin researchers are already leading global AI labs, and with continued investment in research and education, the IndiaAI Mission, and the startup ecosystem, India will be able to compete at the highest levels, said Chemmankotil.
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Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
Eternal and Swiffy will quadruple the size of the business over next 3 years, while keeping losses in check: Kunal Vora
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If I look at a category like grocery, more than 80% is still largely driven by 10 million mom-and-pop outlets. We have seen a modern trade making some inroads, but it has still been restricted to top cities and then we saw overall growth starting to stabilise in modern trade while e-commerce did not really make any meaningful dent when it came to the grocery segment. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Play War Thunder now for free War Thunder Play Now Undo What we saw with quick commerce is a very strong growth over the last couple of years driven by the dark stores which provide convenience; pricing also has been reasonable and consumers use them more frequently. Also, they were able to crack unit economics with Eternal getting to EBITDA breakeven in 1H of FY25. What we have seen subsequently is a land grab phase in which everyone started investing more aggressively. We have seen that happening in three quick commerce companies. But other retail and e-commerce companies are also looking at this opportunity very closely. They are also starting to invest. It is really about chasing and getting the first mover advantage and we believe that the near-term metric to judge them by will be ensuring that they maintain a very strong growth, while at the same time keeping the EBITDA losses in check. I would not judge them by immediate profitability even if over the next couple of years, they get scale. What we are expecting is just between the two companies which we cover – Eternal and Swiggy – where the net order value will increase from about $4 billion in FY25 to $16 billion by FY28. That is quadrupling the size of the business over the next three years, while keeping the losses in check. We expect that the model in the case of food delivery is initially getting the scale and then focus on profitability will be replicated. Having said that, this is going to be a more competitive industry. The size of the industry is much larger compared to what the food delivery industry is and it is going to remain competitive. Right now, it is more a question of just getting the size and we expect margins to follow. Live Events You Might Also Like: Quick commerce apps stack up extra fees to curb losses How do you see unit economics evolving across food delivery and quick commerce as the market matures? Kunal Vora: In the case of food delivery, we have already seen that happening. In food delivery, if I look at over the last three years, this industry was making about $20 billion in EBITDA losses. In FY25, we have seen about $20 billion EBITDA positive numbers. In case of quick commerce, we believe that going forward, FY26 will remain a year in which there will be peak losses, but beyond that in FY27, we expect Eternal to get to breakeven level at EBITDA level. In the case of Swiggy, we expect it to take longer about FY29 or FY30. In terms of margins, we expect the food delivery margins getting closer to 5% now and on average order value, while in case of quick commerce we expect to take longer, but about 5% is possible in the medium term. The report states that the food delivery is more resilient than the QSRs. Now, is this primarily due to the capex like models or are there consumer behaviour shifts that are driving this advantage? Kunal Vora: In our report, we have done an extensive comparison and benchmarking between food delivery and quick service restaurants – both spaces which we look at very closely now. What we see is that the Indian quick service restaurant industry has seen an increase in EBITDA but they have not been able to generate free cash flow because whatever increase in EBITDA they have seen, largely that is getting reinvested in capex. The big difference between the two is that in the case of food delivery, there is almost no capex, there is no working capital. So, whatever EBITDA they are able to generate is getting reinvested in another very large high growth opportunity which is quick commerce. So, that is a space which we prefer between the two. Even in terms of growth trends, over the last six years – FY19 to FY25 –, QSR industry has seen about 13% revenue CAGR, but that has been driven by 14% store CAGR and that is fairly capex intensive. You Might Also Like: Reinventing Retail: How local kirana stores are adapting to India's quick commerce boom Many of the companies like Jubilant FoodWorks, the capex was about 1-1.5 billion per annum in FY19, but that number is now about 7 billion in FY25. So, while we have not seen a meaningful increase in EITDA, the capex intensity has been fairly elevated in QSR industry and that is the reason we believe food delivery is a better place to be in. In terms of the audience that quick commerce caters to, help us understand how you expect quick commerce to evolve into a true mass market channel? Or will it remain an urban value proposition in the near future? Kunal Vora: In our projections, we see the quick commerce industry catering more to the affluent consumers by FY28. But once they achieve scale, they will be in a position to go mass market as well. For now, our expectation is about 40-45 million households will be spending about Rs 5,000 monthly on quick commerce that can be across various different categories. It can be home and personal care. It can be consumer electronics. There are various products which they can start adding. And beyond that, once they achieve scale, which is about $16 billion just between the two quick commerce companies, they will have many margin levers which can help them bring the cost down. 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In the case of physical retailers, it is going to be about the consumer footfalls and they will look more at scheduled deliveries. While they will look to bring the delivery times lower, at the same time they would not go into the dark store model wherein they are close to the consumers in every location. With the heavy focus on the dark store expansion, how should players balance the speed of scaling with profitability discipline? Kunal Vora: After Blinkit achieved EBITDA breakeven, there has been a big burst of dark store expansion. The number of dark stores have doubled in FY25 across most players. I expect FY26 to be a year in which there will be some consolidation while the heavy growth will still continue, and at the same time, we will not see doubling of store count and the focus will be on driving efficiencies to bring the EITDA losses to lower levels compared to what we see. FY26 could be the peak year. 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Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
Itel Alpha 2 Pro review: Affordable functionality meets essential features
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The Hindu
15 minutes ago
- The Hindu
More than 50% of India's future startups will rise outside metros: Report
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