Intel designates India as a separate geography

Intel announced the designation of India as a separate geography for Intel, making it the fifth region for its business operations. Christoph Schell, Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, Intel said the company is seeing increasing growth, opportunities, and momentum in its India business.

Schell was speaking at Intel India’s AI summit in Bengaluru. Prior to this, Intel India SMG (Sales, Marketing and Communications group) was a part of Intel’s APJ (Asia Pacific and Japan) operations. The four regions for the company are Americas, EMEA (Europe and Middle East), PRC (People’s Republic of China) and APJ (Asia Pacific and Japan).

• Also read: Intel’s strategy to revitalise with AI innovations: Steve Long and Santhosh Viswanathan share insights

India’s designation as an independent region highlights its strategic importance in Intel’s global operations and is also reflective of the immense opportunities the country presents. This new region will be led by Santhosh Vishwanathan, MD and VP, India Region, Intel, said the company.

“We see increasing growth, opportunities, and momentum in our business in India. Creation of India as a separate region is an indicator of the business and resulting growth opportunities that lie ahead of us as a company. With the creation of India as a separate region, we are enabling our team here to move with more speed and agility to best serve our customers,” said Schell.

• Also read: Intel aims to strengthen partner ecosystem in India

AI readiness

As the company is highly bullish on AI, Vishwanathan noted that three key factors contributing to India’s readiness for AI - abundance of data, with 20 per cent of the world’s data, including a significant portion from rural India, there’s ample fuel for driving AI models.

India’s application of AI is distinct, favouring multiple smaller models tailored to societal needs rather than one large model. Further, India is home to around 20 per cent of the world’s AI talent, indicating a strong foundation for further development in the field.

“We have been in India for the longest time. One of our largest R &D sites outside of the US is here, with about 14 ,000 employees, and over $9 billion being invested through the years. There is also skill sets that we can all leverage as the engineering talent, is building world -class products for the world,” he said, underscoring the importance of the region.

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