The countries of the Global South stand at a point where collaboration is no longer optional. If we want a meaningful place in the emerging digital order, we must evolve from being users of other nations’ data and technology into creators of our own ideas, content and intelligence. This shift requires an environment where innovation is rooted locally but connected globally.
A strong and inclusive AI ecosystem will be central to this transformation. It must rest on shared digital public infrastructure, open digital goods and affordable access to compute and cloud capabilities that span borders. When these foundations are built collectively, they allow talent, research and innovation to circulate freely across regions rather than remain confined to a few advanced economies.
This vision cannot be realised by government or the private sector alone. We need a partnership model where public institutions create scale, trust and long term stability, while industry contributes speed, ingenuity and the ability to turn ideas into working systems. Together, we can co-build and co own an ecosystem that supports responsible growth and gives the Global South the ability to participate in shaping the technological future, not simply absorbing it.
Business Consulting
KPMG’s Business Consulting professionals can help you identify and solve the challenges that stand in the way of your growth and progress.
Driving growth with Business Consulting
- AI Impact Summit 2026
- NASSCOM Technology & Leadership Forum 2026
- AIMA Foundation Day
- Bio Asia 2026
- ET Now Global Business Summit
- A trade shift that protects India's AI push
- India Inc on the move - Smart and sustainable manufacturing
- CII Future Works Summit
- Embedded Finance, Powered by AI
- India’s Power Market: The Case for Market Coupling
- Accelerating AI Adoption Across Ministries and States
- The Indian Sport Management Conference 2025
- 13th Annual Conference on Urban Rail in India by Indian Infrastructure Magazine
- Confederation of Indian Industry Mumbai International Summit
- Auto EV Conclave
- AI skilling and capability building will determine India’s competitive edge
- Navigating India’s Tea Market Challenges
- The Economic Times Global Manufacturing Conclave
- KPMG Global private company CEO outlook
- CII CFO Roundtable
- Historic labour reform: Four labour codes now effective
- Bengaluru Tech Summit
- Earth Summit
- Shaping India’s healthcare workforce for the digital era
- AI-Powered Transformation in the Energy
- Aligning India's energy evolution with resilience and reforms
- Karnataka Annual CFO Conclave 2025
- AI will drive steady, long-term growth for IT and consulting
- The Innovation Edge: Driving the Next Wave of Banking with Agentic AI
- Centre to intensify advance-level exploration of critical miniral blocks
- Digital mining: Transforming the mining value chain
- Akhilesh Tuteja
- Purushothaman KG
- Nilachal Mishra
- Atul Gupta
- Narayanan Ramaswamy
- Abhishek Verma
- Priyanka Sharma
Nilachal Mishra
Partner and Head, Government & Public Services (G&PS), National Leader - Government and Infrastructure
KPMG in India
Tech has enabled innovation at scale and transformed the services provided by fintech industry. The industry has been at forefront of leveraging data using multiple tech solutions to provide enhanced user experience.
AI provides an opportunity to further enhance the impact of services by providing vertical integration, hyper personalisation, ease of consumption of services and drive innovation at scale.
As industry adopts AI, there are few key considerations that industry needs to be mindful that includes enhanced resilience, establishing guard rails for usage of AI to have a trusted environment, minimise over-dependence on few tech providers and develop sovereign solutions. AI provides immense power and ability to the industry that is well poised to enhance impact by driving responsible innovation.
Narayanan Ramaswamy
National Leader - Education and Skill Development, Government and Public Services
KPMG in India
Ai is reshaping work at a pace our systems were never built for. History shows that every technological disruption has expanded opportunity - but to harness this moment, our policy focus must shift from degrees to competencies, and from credentials to continuous skilling. The real challenge is whether our people, and our institutions, can evolve quickly enough to match the scale of this transformation.
Securing our digital future through homegrown innovation isn't just a strategy - it is a necessity that must be built on the foundation of robust public-private collaboration.
Today's illustrious panel explored the next set of breakthroughs that can shape India's path toward true AI independence across the enitre technology stack with a sharp emphasis on how prepared our security and defense ecosystems are to lead this transformation.
- Yezdi Nagporewalla
- Sunit Sinha
- Shikha Kamboj
Gender-balanced leadership is a fundamental driver of organisational success. Yet performance reviews, promotion criteria, and leadership assessments often reflect long‑standing assumptions that can unintentionally shape outcomes for women.
The true test of commitment to DEI lies in how rigorously organisations examine and strengthen evaluation systems to eliminate these biases. As organisations mature, embedding transparent and auditable evaluation practices will not just enhance equity - it will also strengthen long‑term institutional trust and leadership credibility.
Shikha Kamboj
Partner, DT-Cyber Strategy and Govn
KPMG in India
Progress in women's leadership is rising, yet the gap between talent and access remains one of our greatest missed opportunities. Equity will not come from progress alone. It will come when institutions redesign the paths that hold women back and leaders choose to remove barriers with the same urgency that women show in breaking them.
- Vijay Chawla
- Kartik Ramakrishnan
Nilachal Mishra
Partner and Head, Government & Public Services (G&PS), National Leader - Government and Infrastructure
KPMG in India
India has earned its place as the strategic hub for global transformation. GCCs will shape discovery, influence regulatory pathways, and accelerate product innovation, making India indispensable to the future of Life Sciences.
- Yezdi Nagporewalla
- Anish De
- Atul Gupta
- Nilachal Mishra
- Abhishek Verma
This is a very critical moment for India’s energy journey. As we move firmly on track to becoming the world’s third-largest economy, that growth is energy-hungry. Today, we are at around 500 gigawatts of installed capacity. By 2047, estimates suggest we could be looking at a grid of nearly 2,000 gigawatts. That is an extraordinary expansion, driven significantly by renewables, especially solar.
But renewables come with intermittency challenges. If we are to power an industrial-scale economy of the size we envision, we need reliable baseload generation. At the same time, the planet is warming, and the global call for decarbonisation grows stronger. Irrespective of geopolitical shifts, low-carbon or zero-carbon energy sources are not optional. They are essential.
Nuclear energy, once sidelined in global conversations, has returned to centre stage. In India, given the scale of our ambitions, it has become a key focus. We are currently at about 9 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, and over the next two decades we aim to scale this more than tenfold to 100 gigawatts. That requires not just ambition, but evolution in technology, supply chains, talent, land acquisition, and commercial frameworks.
A landmark legislation has opened the door to greater private sector participation, which the government recognises as necessary to achieve this scale. At the same time, India consumes nearly 20 percent of the world’s data but has only about 2.5 percent of global data centre capacity. The recent Union Budget’s thrust on data centres underscores the importance of data sovereignty, security, and building a resilient domestic ecosystem. All of this adds further pressure on our energy systems.
There are real questions we must address—on pricing and tariffs, on supply chains, on commercial mechanisms, and on trust. Even as nuclear returns to serious consideration, public confidence must be earned, especially when building at this magnitude. If we are to move beyond 2.5 gigawatts per annum and eventually exceed 5 gigawatts per annum post-2032, it demands coordinated action across government, industry, and society. The scale of the challenge is immense, but so is the opportunity.
- Ambiguity is the new operating environment for CEOs. Navigating fluid global dynamics has become a core leadership capability.
- Resilience is now a strategic differentiator. Organisations that can anticipate, absorb and adapt to shocks will define the next decade.
- Trust is emerging as an economic currency. In a world of rapid digitalisation, trust-driven ecosystems will outperform those built purely on scale or efficiency.
- Innovation must move from the periphery to the core. It can no longer be experimental—it has to be embedded, continuous and enterprise-wide.
- Talent strategies need a reset. Leaders must enable teams to thrive amid constant change, not just manage it.
- Business disruption cycles are compressing. With new and unfamiliar risks emerging, risk intelligence and forward visibility are critical.
- AI represents a generational shift. Its true potential will be realised only when it becomes more human-centric, ethical and responsible.
- Digital and data sovereignty are gaining prominence. Yet, India is uniquely positioned to leverage this moment and accelerate its journey toward Viksit Bharat.
Nilachal Mishra
Partner and Head, Government & Public Services (G&PS), National Leader - Government and Infrastructure
KPMG in India
India’s AI trajectory was at risk of being shaped by external gatekeepers rather than domestic ambition. The 2025 rule placed India in the second tier for US chip exports, which meant Indian companies could access advanced AI chips only through export licenses and in restricted volumes. In practical terms, this would have limited India’s AI compute capacity to roughly fifty thousand GPUs nationwide.
High‑end chips for Indian AI initiatives would have required case‑by‑case US approval, slowing essential upgrades and increasing reliance on US policy decisions. The outcome would have been fewer GPUs, slower deployment cycles, and a significant constraint on the pace of India’s AI growth.
Creating the future of industrial operations means moving from hardware-bound systems to software-defined automation and robotics which enables flexibility, scalability, being data-driven, and connected. This is the need of the hour to scale up Indian manufacturing ecosystem.
If India truly wants to become Viksit Bharat, MSMEs, which sit at the heart of our growth engine, must shift from labour‑intensive operations to capability-led AI powered enterprises. The next era of growth will be led by those which invest on talent and skills combined with the ability to adapt at speed. Ultimately, investing in people will define India’s future.
The Indian fintech sector has been a defining force in reshaping how financial services are accessed and consumed. Over the last decade, companies in fintech have solved critical issues in payments and lending, and financial inclusion.
However, the journey ahead demands a shift from addressing isolated challenges; it calls for building integrated value propositions that transcend silos. Embedded finance offers precisely this opportunity, enabling fintechs to weave financial services seamlessly into everyday user experiences, creating an enduring impact for the broader ecosystem. AI is increasingly becoming core to this movement, unlocking unprecedented potential to scale intelligence across operations.
Market coupling for India's power market will likely increase trading volumes by aggregating bids across exchanges, creating a single clearing price. While this improves efficiency and transparency, it reduces individual exchange autonomy and may limit flexibility in price discovery for participants.
India AI Mission has laid the right foundation - compute at scale, open datasets, language models, and responsible AI. Now, the focus should be to move decisively from pilots to production across ministries and states. An accelerated AI adoption should focus on time bound inter-ministerial adoption in priority sectors such as health, agriculture, justice, and skilling, along with last mile integration with Digital Public Infrastructure.
Data, tech & the future of sports management:
Technology is the fastest growing sub-sectors in India in sports with adoption of wearable technology, fan engagement software and decision support system through AI. It is shaping how athletes prepare and perform, how coaches make informed decisions, and how sporting organisations build long-term, sustainable success. The real value lies in applying it with clarity, responsibility, and a clear focus on performance outcomes.
The next phase of urban rail is about shaping cities, not just moving people. Success will depend upon thoughtful integration, smart financial engineering, strong institutional alignment and innovative technologies across delivery and operations.
Mumbai powering the future of India - Energy transition, data centers & cleantech revolution:
Mumbai has the ambition and capital to power India's digital transformation but the scale is often underestimated - adding 1 GW of data-centre capacity alone can raise peak demand by up to 25%, even before accounting for growth in other sectors. Turning ambition into outcomes will require coordinated programmes with clear ROI, policy certainty, and a strong innovation backbone.
Jeffry Jacob
Partner and National Sector Leader - Automotive, Industry Group Leader - Chemicals
KPMG in India
EVs as climate catalyts: Accelerating India's path to net-zero mobility:
EVs become true climate catalysts when we integrate clean electrons, circular batteries, and bankable models, underpinned by interoperable standards. India's transition must have solutions that work for premium buyers, mass market users and public transport. A multi-pathway approach keeps the focus on abatement per rupee and energy security.
Training millions in AI and creating equitable access will be key to ensuring India remains competitive in the global digital economy. Even as India becomes one of the most consequential battlegrounds for AI investments globally, the success of billion-dollar commitments will hinge on the country’s ability to scale talent, build capabilities across sectors and ensure that the benefits of AI are broadly distributed.
The tea category faces multiple challenges. Mass segments face down-trading and intense regional competition that limit pricing flexibility. In this environment, success will hinge on cost agility, steady premiumisation, and wide reach across channels. Brands that balance innovation with affordability and maintain wide distribution while managing volatility will define leadership in India’s evolving tea landscape.
- S Sathish
- Jeffry Jacob
- Nikhil Patil
India has made significant progress in reshaping its manufacturing landscape over the past decade, but deeper technological and ecosystem transformation is needed to compete with global leaders. While the top quartile of Indian manufacturers shows reasonable capability, a significant portion of companies are far below the desired digital maturity. Without widespread adoption of Industry 4.0, automation and AI-enabled systems, India risks losing competitiveness to countries that scaled digitalisation much earlier.
Jeffry Jacob
Partner and National Sector Leader - Automotive, Industry Group Leader - Chemicals
KPMG in India
Reimagining global manufacturing & supply chains in a disrupted world - Resilience, agility & strategic autonomy
Resilient supply chains aren’t built on infrastructure or technology alone, they are built on collaboration, smart capital choices and adaptable talent. As India strengthens its position in global manufacturing, innovation, advanced digital tools, and artificial intelligence will drive the next wave of transformation. The next disruption may look different, but the ability to pivot quickly and collaborate effectively will remain the winning mantra.
Nikhil Patil
Partner, C&O-Commercial-CM&LS
KPMG in India
The India advantage in scale, cost, and capability for the world
India has always had the ingenuity and talent; what has changed is the alignment of global demand, domestic modernisation and a greater appetite for investment in capability. However, India cannot claim global competitiveness unless its tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers rise on quality, compliance, and technology.
Private company CEOs are proving that resilience and foresight are critical in today’s volatile landscape. Instead of reacting to disruption, they are actively redefining their business models. The findings highlight that these leaders see technology and innovation, particularly AI, as central to driving sustainable growth. Their confidence positions private enterprises at the forefront of adaptability and long-term value creation.
- Ummehaani
- Sumit Kapoor
Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) has traditionally been fragmented and siloed across departments, sometimes reduced to check-in-the-box compliance. As supply chains are more interconnected and interdependent today, by integrating ESG, regulatory, reputational, cyber and financial risk parameters into a unified framework, organisations can move from reactive to predictive risk management. However, challenges remain: data quality and availability, integration with legacy systems, regulatory compliance and explainability, and change management. Overcoming these hurdles with Artificial Intelligence makes it possible to connect the dots across all risk types, so companies can stop playing catch-up and start leading with confidence, trust, and adaptability.
Businesses today face rapid, unpredictable changes: new products, regulatory shifts, talent competition, ESG, and tech transformation. The pace of “unknown unknowns” or “Black Swan events” is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Naturally, traditional risk models find it difficult to keep up with that pace as they assume stability and predictability in businesses and operating landscape. AI is emerging as a new risk nervous system helping with fraud detection, cyber defence, supply chain resilience and more. Future operating model of risk management must consider the four-dimensional lens of probability, severity, interconnectedness, and velocity; which helps with real-time intelligence and simulation of multiple futures.
At KPMG we continue to assist our clients stay ahead of the curve through our AI led risk management capabilities – converting noise to signals and doubts to trust.
The Government of India had introduced transformational reforms to simplify and modernise labour laws by enacting the four Labour codes almost 5 years back. An impactful step in that direction has been taken by making it effective from today – 21 November 2025. This move rationalises 29 existing laws and aligns India’s labour ecosystem with global standards.
What are few key aspects?
- Mandatory appointment letters for all workers: promoting formal employment
- Universal social security coverage: including gig & platform workers
- Minimum wages for all: statutory right for every worker
- Mandatory for employer to provide timely wages
- Women empowerment: night shift allowed with safety measures
- ESIC coverage and benefits extended to PAN-India for establishments with employment strength of 10 employees
- Single registration & license: reducing compliance burden
- Free annual health check-ups: for specified workers above 40 years
These reforms empower workers, boost employment, and simplify compliance, paving the way for a future-ready workforce and resilient industries under Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
Deepening Techno-Functional Excellence - How U.S. GCCs Are Evolving from Enablement to Innovation
Techno-functional excellence will define the next chapter of GCC evolution, shifting our role from pure enablement to true innovation. The combination of deep sector expertise with technology as the foundational engine of transformation allows GCCs to anchor their work in core business domains and deliver impact that is both broader in scale and sharper in outcomes. This is how GCCs move from supporting the enterprise to shaping its future.
Sidharth Ravishankar
Partner, C&O-FS
KPMG in India
Rural Finance & Credit Acceleration
Access to timely and well-priced credit is critical to propel the rural economy. Despite lender availability, structural challenges to borrower data, simplified processes, and last-mile delivery are limiting granular credit growth. With strong policy intent, alternative data points (household score, image-based patterns, satellite information), and digital infrastructure, we are well poised to make transformative changes to boost rural credit and consequentially accelerate the rural growth engine.
Forward-looking healthcare organisations are institutionalising digital learning through in-house academies, simulation labs, and collaborations with edtech partners and GCCs. The focus is on ‘learning in flow,’ helping clinicians and administrators gain digital confidence while on the job and seamlessly integrate technology into care workflows. Many organisations are now linking digital competency with career progression, signalling that digital readiness is a core part of healthcare excellence.
I've witnessed numerous shifts in the energy industry. However, the current era, driven by artificial intelligence, is truly transformative. From optimising complex operations and enhancing resource management to accelerating scientific research and reimagining business models, AI is fundamentally reshaping how we approach energy.
The future of exploration in India will be digital data-led, smarter.
India holds over three million square kilometers of sedimentary basins still to be fully understood. Moving from underexplored acreage to integrated, data-rich subsurface intelligence will be key to unlocking this potential. Digitalisation and advanced analytics are already reshaping exploration workflows — improving accuracy, reducing cycle times, and strengthening cost efficiency. This journey will also demand deeper collaboration. Geoscientists, data specialists, engineers, global partners, startups, and academia must jointly create solutions that reflect India’s geological and energy context.
Equally, we need to empower talent and break silos. The next breakthroughs will come from younger professionals who are encouraged to experiment, challenge assumptions, and innovate with speed. Ultimately, the move from rock to cloud is not just technological — it reflects a mindset shift where exploration evolves from resource extraction to sustainable, future-ready energy development.
India’s upstream story is being rewritten with data, technology, talent, and shared ambition.
Over the past few decades, the finance function has undergone a profound transformation, evolving from a custodian of numbers to a strategic partner that drives growth, insight, and innovation. Gone are the days when finance merely reported the past; today, it is shaping the future.
AI is no longer just a tool for efficiency. It has become the engine powering this transformation. Indian enterprises are embedding AI into their core financial strategies by unifying data across ERP and CRM systems, applying advanced analytics, and fostering a culture of digital fluency. CFOs are using AI and machine learning to move from reactive reporting to predictive and prescriptive insights, from manual processes to intelligent automation, and from a focus on cost control to one on value creation.
As adoption scales responsibly, finance leaders are unlocking new sources of enterprise value while redefining the role of finance as a driver of business resilience and inclusive growth. This transformation is helping position India as a trusted global hub for AI-led financial innovation and progress.
AI transformation is probably easier because there’s now a clear understanding of where it’s headed, how to leverage and extract value from agentic AI and, eventually, autonomous agents. The roadmap is visible. What creates challenges, however, is unpredictability, deciding whether to invest in one sector over another when tariffs, supply chains, and global conditions remain uncertain.
Most banking institutions already have analytics and process automation. The next phase is decision autonomy, where systems learn, act, and adapt in real time.
Banks can consider three key models of AI adoption:
- Smart Overlays – deploying AI agents over existing systems to improve efficiency.
- Agents by Design – re-engineering processes and modernising legacy platforms.
- Autonomous Networks – enabling multiple agents to plan, reason, and act collaboratively.
Agentic AI demands observability. You must monitor how agents behave and make decisions. Decision intelligence must be built responsibly, with architecture, explainability, and ethics at its core.
The G3 stage is a prospecting phase, so there is lower confidence on the critical minerals resources estimation and associated economic feasibility. In case of major minerals like coal or iron ore, miners have had years of operational experience but it is not the case with critical minerals, and hence the confidence level around such minerals resources and the overall economic construct needs to be greater to secure interest from investors.
Moving to a G2 (general exploration) level would significantly improve bidders confidence on the resources estimates, enabling wider and quality participation in critical minerals mines auctions. However, exploration alone will not resolve structural challenges. In cases like the clay-form lithium in Jammu and Kashmir, challenges extend beyond exploration to technical and operational hurdles. Extracting and refining lithium (to battery grade) commercially requires suitable technologies and facilities within India to realise its full value.
Advancing towards sustainability: The emergence of green mining technologies and practices
The Indian mining industry has been embracing greenmining technologies and practices – from electrification and automation to regenerative and water-efficient solutions – to drive sustainablity across operations and supply chains. The star rating system instituted by the Ministry of Mines, Govt of India (MoM) through Indian Bureau (IBM) for implementation of Sustainable Development Framework (SDF) has been working as an excellent impetus in this regard.
A more concerted effort to resolve challenges around efficient resource utilisation by:
- promoting beneficiation of low-grade ore,
- adoption of renewable/hybrid energy sources,
- mine closures as per approved plan through policy guidelines, and
- adoption of global best practices
can drive this mission towards sustainability even more strongly, reinforcing the need for collaborative innovation and ESG integration in mining.
Hear from the experts
India Insights
Our insights is your gateway to thought leadership and in-depth reports. Explore our curated collection of valuable content, where we delve into complex business challenges, share industry trends, and provide actionable insights.
