Indian enterprises’ investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35% to reach $9.2 billion by 2028, a research paper released by International Data Corporation (IDC) and data integration platform Qlik showed.
The report further said that 36% of Indian enterprises are already using generative AI in their operations, while 46% plan to make an investment towards the same over the next 12-24 months. India also has a higher percentage of enterprises with AI projects in the proof-of-concept stage at 18% compared to the Asia Pacific (APAC) average of 8%.
While the intent to adopt and experiment with AI is evident, Indian enterprises also cited hurdles in the form of measurable AI/ML improvements and data quality as barriers to effective adoption. According to the study, data quality is a major barrier, with 54% of Indian organisations citing it as a challenge, significantly higher than Australia (40%), Asean (40%), and even the APAC average of 50.4%.
Consequently, 62% Indian enterprises said there is a need to improve data governance and privacy policies. More Indian enterprises (28%) said that they struggle with AI data bias compared to the Asean average of 21.8%.
“GenAI is transforming industries in India – from compliance in retail to fraud prevention in finance and predictive maintenance in manufacturing,” said Deepika Giri, associate vice-president, big data analytics, blockchain, and web3 research, IDC Asia/Pacific.
“But to unlock its full potential, organisations must prioritise trusted data, robust governance, and infrastructure readiness to scale AI effectively and responsibly,” she added.
More than half (51%) Indian enterprises said they are deploying AI solutions in the cloud and 80% organisations said they see cloud migration as essential.
India leads Asean in public cloud adoption, with 40% of enterprises leveraging one or more public clouds, compared to 31% in Asean. Additionally, 30% of organisations prefer a hybrid model.
“Indian organisations see cloud adoption as a critical step toward AI success,” said Varun Babbar, vice-president, India, Qlik. He added that in order to scale AI-driven innovation, businesses need a strong, scalable data infrastructure that supports high-performance AI applications.
