US-based cybersecurity major CrowdStrike is expanding its presence in India as leading technology and consulting firms begin integrating its Falcon cybersecurity platform into large-scale digital and AI initiatives.
Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike’s chief business officer, told FE that companies including Infosys, Wipro, TCS, HCL and Cognizant have partnered with the cybersecurity firm for enterprise-wide security deployments.
Bernard added that the firm is eyeing to close in on $5 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) globally by fiscal year 2026, for which India stands as an important market. The company’s ARR grew 23% year-over-year to $4.92 billion after its third quarter results.
What did Bernard say?
This development, the company says, is linked to the growing number of firms which have cybersecurity at the core of their AI and digital transformation projects.
“We are seeing a shift where cybersecurity is no longer an afterthought. It has to be native and by design,” Bernard said.
CrowdStrike’s partnership with NVIDIA
CrowdStrike has recently partnered with NVIDIA in a move to strengthen its position in the AI infrastructure stack. As part of the deal, the cybersecurity firm is securing NVIDIA’s GPU-to-software pipeline for providing native protection to enterprises which are adopting accelerated computing and generative AI models.
“AI adoption won’t succeed if it’s bolted on to legacy security. It has to be secured at the source. With our partnership with NVIDIA, we’re building the guardrails that let organisations innovate with AI confidently and at scale,” Bernard said.
The company positions it as the “operating system of cybersecurity,” offering a single platform that secures devices, identities and data, while enabling organisations to act on security intelligence.
Bernard said that unlike competitors who stack disparate tools, CrowdStrike stakes its advantage on a unified platform and a single data model.
He added that the company’s AI-native architecture allows it to autonomously detect and respond to threats, an approach he argues competitors such as Microsoft Defender and Palo Alto Networks do not match.
India has turned into a strategic node in CrowdStrike’s global expansion. The company employs over 1,000 people in Pune alone, with additional offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi, making India one of its largest talent pools.
CrowdStrike faced scrutiny last year after a software update resulted in a major outage. To this, Bernard called it a significant learning moment that ultimately strengthened customer trust and made its model more integrated and competitive against vulnerabilities.
He added that AI has democratised cyberattacks, lowering the bar for threat actors.
“Attacks that once required sophisticated adversaries can now be launched by regular individuals. At the same time, AI elevates defenders, multiplying what human analysts can achieve,” he said.
