Google Cloud Security is strengthening its focus on public sector partnerships, building on lessons from Singapore and applying them across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region–particularly in India, Jagdish Mahapatra, managing director, Google Cloud Security Japan and APAC, told FE.
The tech major sees security not as an add-on but as the essential foundation for digital transformation, he added.
“Can we keep security at the forefront and not as an afterthought?” Mahapatra asked, pointing to how critical cybersecurity is considering India’s rapid evolution as a market.
He stressed that the country is in a phase of accelerated digital transformation, creating both opportunities and risks as enterprises and public institutions move workloads to the cloud.
India’s unique scale drives APAC strategy
Google Cloud Security’s projects with public sector entities Singapore, which has advanced regulatory frameworks, are serving as the guidebook for its conversation with the Indian public sector.
Mahapatra, however, emphasised that India’s diversity, scale and demographic profile make it a unique testbed. “If India embraces (a solution) in a big way, that’s going to make us even further unstoppable because the growth’s there just by the sheer consumer depth and breadth,” he said.
While public sector engagement is an area that the firm is pursuing, he said that cybersecurity will need to be a focus for boardrooms as well, as enterprises–private and government–embrace artificial intelligence (AI)-led solutions.
Security as the foundation for enterprise AI/GenAI scaling
One of the key barriers to scaling up AI and cloud adoption, cybersecurity experts have consistently pointed out, is the lack of confidence in security. Enterprises may succeed in proofs of concept, but falter at execution. Ensuring enterprise networks will not become vulnerable by scaling up AI/GenAI solutions is key to facilitating large-scale adoption of said use cases, they say.
“Only then will you have the confidence to take AI use cases especially, to GenAI, enterprise AI cases to execution and scale level,” Mahapatra stressed, adding that embedding security into cloud and AI adoption will be critical for governments and industry alike.
He also highlighted how with the acquisition of Mandiant, Google Cloud Security can now provide insights into what enterprises are dealing with and help organisations strengthen their security operations centres with a cloud-native approach.
Mahapatra added that traditional sectors such as banking, telecom and manufacturing, along with healthcare, remain prime targets and need proactive defence. At the same time, India’s IT services industry is at the forefront because it carries sensitive global customer data, he said.
