As synthetic intelligence (AI) stirs contemporary doubts about the way forward for info expertise providers, HCL Applied sciences Ltd’s chief government officer C. Vijayakumar stated the trade is certainly at its greatest inflection level but, and it faces a painful, people-led transition. He, nevertheless, pushed again towards fears of sweeping disruption, arguing that enterprise adoption will take time and is “not as dramatic” as being portrayed.
“So I believe I’d say this: this transition is totally different… it is going to be painful as a result of it actually entails folks,” stated Vijayakumar throughout a fireplace chat on the Nasscom Expertise and Management Discussion board 2026 in Mumbai on Tuesday.
The chief government’s feedback come as worries across the relevance of IT providers have pulled down the corporate’s shares by greater than 17% because the begin of the 12 months. Alternatively, the trade’s Nifty IT index fell greater than 20% throughout this time.
Amid a contemporary wave of shareholder concern round IT providers, the corporate’s shares fell 6.1% on Tuesday. A lot of this got here after AI main Anthropic’s newest weblog put up on 23 February that advised AI might modernize software program that manages automated teller machines (ATMs) run by banks. Shares of the nation’s largest IT providers corporations had been down 2-7%, with HCL being the worst hit among the many prime 4.
Vijayakumar, one among Indian IT’s longest-serving CEOs, dismissed these considerations. “Expertise is unquestionably turning into rather more highly effective, however what’s being missed is how do you actually deploy it in an enterprise,” he stated. “At this time, there’s a large lag between how briskly expertise is evolving and the way it’s getting deployed within the enterprise. I believe that’s the place the challenges are going to be,” Vijayakumar stated in a media interplay after the hearth chat.
“It’s going to take time; it’s not as dramatic as what’s being portrayed that expertise can obtain,” stated Vijayakumar, who will full a decade as the corporate’s chief government in October 2026.
The chief government additionally sought to calm nerves of tens of millions of engineering graduates eyeing jobs at India’s prime tech service companies by including that core software program engineering jobs would all the time be in demand.
“The demand for specialised abilities, I believe will develop considerably, whether or not it’s knowledge, cloud, safety, AI… all these specialised abilities will probably be in much more demand,” he stated. “I additionally assume the core software program engineering ideas will probably be very, very related,” Vijayakumar added.
The corporate ended final 12 months with $13.84 billion in income, up 4.3%. This makes it the quickest rising IT providers firm among the many nation’s large 5 for the final two years. The administration expects the corporate to outgrow its friends for the third straight 12 months, as corporations additional unlock spending on non-essential expertise.
In income phrases, HCLTech ranks third amongst India’s IT service suppliers after Tata Consultancy Providers and Infosys. Wipro and Tech Mahindra comply with. TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra reported an annual income of $30.18 billion, $19.28 billion, $10.51 billion, and $6.26 billion, respectively. TCS and Infosys’s revenues had been up 3.8% and three.8%, whereas Wipro and Tech Mahindra noticed a 2.7% and 0.2% decline, respectively.
HCLTech was additionally the primary of the massive 5 IT companies to share particulars on income from GenAI, when it disclosed the numbers in October final 12 months. It reported about $246 million income from superior tasks, together with agentic AI, AI factories and bodily AI for the July-December 2025 interval.
Vijayakumar’s opinions are just like these of firm chairperson Roshni Nadar-Malhotra three days in the past. She stated the trade had taken to technological cycles previously and that “this isn’t the primary time that we’ve been right here.”
“The trade has tailored to many technological cycles over many many years. For us, AI goes to be a pressure multiplier. It’s an excellent factor, as a result of corporations will all the time want software program providers. AI is like blocks of Lego, and also you’re not simply going to make sense of it with out having somebody let you know what to make of it,” Nadar-Malhotra stated at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the group’s first semiconductor venture inauguration in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh.
Chips on board
Vijayakumar stated that semiconductor corporations and tech {hardware} producers stand to profit probably the most from the AI wave. “I believe the worth is disproportionately with semiconductor corporations. Monumental worth is captured by the tech OEMs and the semiconductor corporations. That is as a result of it is really pushed by a constraint that exists, and whether or not it’s semiconductors and even expertise, I do not assume there will probably be extra aggressive gamers emerge…” he stated.
In contrast to its larger rival TCSwhich is seeking to construct and keep knowledge centres, HCLTech is venturing into its {hardware} roots as its father or mother HCL Corp, flagship of the HCL Group, plans to provide chips for 1 / 4 of India’s shows by the subsequent two years.
The HCL Group, based by billionaire Shiv Nadar, will run the semiconductor plant with Taiwan-headquartered international contract producer Foxconn, as a privately held three way partnership, India Chip Pvt Ltd. HCL Corp holds a 60% stake within the three way partnership, with Foxconn holding the remaining 40%.
Whereas the semiconductor wing would possibly work unbiased of HCLTech, the corporate is just not new to chips. HCLTech was earlier engaged within the engineering, analysis and growth of semiconductor chips.