Indian enterprises are moving beyond AI experimentation to deploying the technology at scale, but the bigger challenge is turning those investments into measurable returns while maintaining security and control. Shailendra Katyal, vice-president and managing director, Lenovo India, says the focus is shifting towards hybrid infrastructure, governance and workforce readiness as AI becomes a boardroom priority. In an interview with Sudhir Chowdhary, he discusses the move from AI pilots to enterprise-scale deployment, the growing role of edge and on-premise computing, the rise of agentic AI and the infrastructure needed to support it. Excerpts:
How would you describe the current state of the Indian technology market? What are the biggest shifts you’re seeing in enterprise spending and customer priorities?
We’re in the middle of an AI techade, and India’s tech industry is proof of it. Enterprises have stopped asking whether they should adopt AI. The question now is how fast, and how responsibly, they can scale it. Our CIO Playbook 2026 shows 99% of Indian enterprises planning to increase AI investment this year, with budgets climbing 19% year-on-year, the fastest pace in Asia Pacific. What’s shifted is who’s in the room: it used to sit with IT, now it’s a boardroom topic, with non-IT functions co-funding AI initiatives. Spending priorities have moved accordingly. Infrastructure and workforce readiness are getting as much attention as the models themselves.
AI has moved from being a buzzword to a boardroom agenda. How are Indian enterprises approaching AI differently today compared with a year or two ago?
A year ago, the conversation was about proving the business case like pilots and ROI validation. Today, 59% of Indian organisations are already piloting or systematically adopting AI. The real issue we’re seeing globally is what I would call the AI ROI gap: 96% of organisations are increasing AI investment, but only 27% have a full governance framework in place. That’s a leadership inflection point – moving from isolated experimentation to true enterprise scale, deliberately, not by accident. India’s AI journey reflects a builder mindset and enterprises aren’t waiting for AI to be handed to them; they’re building the infrastructure and governance to own it responsibly.
Lenovo has been talking about building AI-enabled ecosystems. What does that mean in practical terms for customers, and why is it becoming important now?
For us, an AI-enabled ecosystem means AI moving seamlessly across the stack from device, edge to the cloud as one connected system, not separate layers bolted together. In practice, a workload moves from device to edge to cloud without friction with no performance drop, no data stuck in silos. Security sits at the heart of that seamlessness, not apart from it. This means a Zero-Trust supply chain from factory floor to employee desktop, endpoint protection scaling with headcount, and infrastructure treating data residency and compliance as non-negotiable. Why now? As we move toward agentic AI and more autonomous systems, the cost of not getting this right from day one is too high.
As AI applications become more demanding, how do you see the role of hybrid infrastructure, spanning devices, edge and cloud, evolving for enterprises?
What people don’t always realise is that inferencing costs, over a model’s life, can run upto 15 times higher than training costs. That expense sits at the infrastructure layer, not the algorithm. This is part of why 84% of organisations globally, and 90% in India, are leaning toward on-prem and edge setups for AI workloads. It’s not that the cloud lacks innovation; it’s that accountability, data residency, and regulatory control have become non-negotiable at scale. Hybrid infrastructure is becoming less a cost decision and more a control decision – the right workload, on the right compute, wherever that is between device, edge, and cloud. That flexibility is what our Hybrid AI strategy is all about.
Beyond AI, what are the biggest technology trends that you believe will shape the Indian enterprise market over the next three to five years?
Agentic AI is the obvious one. Interest is set to double next year, but only about 10% of organisations feel ready to scale it. This is a real readiness gap. Security is also moving further upstream, built into the lifecycle rather than an afterthought, especially as autonomous systems make more decisions on their own. And India’s semiconductor push can’t be ignored. It’ll reshape how much of the compute stack gets built domestically, alongside digital public infrastructure, which the world is starting to study.
India is emerging as a key market for digital transformation and AI adoption. How important is the country in Lenovo’s global strategy, and where do you see the biggest growth opportunities?
India is a real capability hub inside our global operating model. We manufacture here, run R&D facilities out of Bengaluru, and increasingly, innovation from India feeds directly into Lenovo’s global portfolio. Our revenue growth for FY25-26 is a testimony. Revenue was up 23% year-on-year, Q4 alone growing 34%, largely on enterprise solutions demand. The biggest opportunity ahead is enterprise AI at scale. India has the talent, the infrastructure momentum, and the appetite to lead the AI democratisation story, not just be part of it.
Looking ahead, what will define the next phase of enterprise technology adoption in India, and how is Lenovo preparing for that future?
The next phase would be closing the AI ROI gap i.e. enterprises scaling up with governance and security built in from day one, not retrofitted. We ourselves are leveraging Lenovo technology, resources and intellectual capital to deliver transformative benefits. We call this “Lenovo powers Lenovo.” With our full-stack Hybrid AI portfolio across personal AI, enterprise AI, and services and solutions our ambition is to bring smarter AI for all.