From Silicon Valley to Bharat: Global Al infrastructure principles for India’s growth

AI is leaving the cloud and hitting the ground-on edge devices, in kitchens, and across India's digital sprawl. With DevOps, observability, and grit, the next tech leap won't come from imitation, but from infrastructure built for Bharat

- KUNAL KHANNA

Artificial intelligence is undergoing a profound transformation. What was once confined to centralised Cloud data centres and academic models is now being operationalised across real-world systems—from retail environments to fast food chains and smart factories. Al is no longer just a concept; it’s embedded into infrastructure and powering customer-facing experiences in real time.

This shift has been made possible by the convergence of three foundational enablers: DevOps, observability and edge computing. Together, they provide the backbone required to deploy, scale and manage intelligent systems with speed, reliability and visibility.

As this global transition unfolds, it presents a powerful opportunity for fast-growing digital economies like India to not only adopt but shape the future of infrastructure-grade AI. With a vast developer ecosystem and a rapidly digitalising market, India stands at the cusp of leapfrogging into a new generation of intelligent, distributed IT.

The emerging era of edge AI and DevOps

A few years ago, deploying AI models meant spinning up GPU workloads in the Cloud. Today, we're embedding AI at the edge—in retail stores, restaurants and warehouses. At IBM Watsonx Orders, our AI inference models run on edge clusters inside QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) locations, enabling real-time, low-latency interactions with customers. These deployments are closer to users, more cost-effective and increasingly essential for a seamless user experience.