'Nature of deals more interesting in emerging mkts'

K KRITHIVASAN, managing director and chief executive officer of TCS, speaks to Shivani Shinde, in an interview in Mumbai, about the company's pipeline and emerging markets, among other topics. Edited excerpts:

- Shivani Shinde

TCS does have a pipeline of $1.5 billion worth in GenAI. When do you see this amount becoming the actual deal wins for the company, or will it take time?

GenAI projects are all short-tenured projects. They are for a period of two to three quarters. We have seen the start of some long-term deals. For instance, for one of our clients, we are creating an AI office. IT creates an overall infrastructure, and methodology for implementing AI solutions. This office will look at multiple use cases and the rollout of these use cases. Some of the clients have started to establish their own AI office, which tends to be a long-term opportunity. My view is that these technologies will take another year or two to mature. Also, over time, we believe that there will be pure play AI projects, but a significant amount of this will be embedded in other projects.

Emerging markets have done very well. Especially India, you also said that the India story is much more than the BSNL deal. Please elaborate.