Wipro Limited, India’s third-largest software services company, has announced a spending plan of $1 billion to train its entire staff of 250,000 employees in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next three years. The company aims to integrate AI into its product offerings and internal operations.
The investment will also bring together 30,000 employees from different teams such as cloud, data analytics, consulting, and engineering to incorporate AI into all aspects of the company’s operations and solutions provided to clients.
Wipro plans to train all its employees on the fundamentals of AI and responsible AI usage within the next 12 months. The company will provide customized and ongoing training for employees in AI-specialized roles. AI has the potential to create trillions of dollars of value in the economy and has captured the imagination of people worldwide with applications such as ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Stable Diffusion, and others.
The latest generative AI applications not only perform routine tasks like data reorganization and classification but also have the ability to write text, compose music, and create digital art.
To facilitate the AI journey for different roles, Wipro will develop a curriculum. Upon completion, employees will receive credentials through the Decentralized Identity & Credential Exchange (DICE) ID platform. The company also plans to run hackathons and challenges on its talent crowd platform, Topcoder, to ensure continuous upskilling of its workforce.
The $1 billion investment by Wipro will further enhance its AI, data, and analytics capabilities, research and development, and platforms. It will also strengthen the FullStride Cloud and enable the company to build new consulting capabilities to help clients adapt to change and unlock new value through AI.
Wipro also intends to accelerate its investments in cutting-edge startups through its venture arm, Wipro Ventures. Additionally, the company will launch the GenAI Seed Accelerator program to provide select startups focused on generative AI with the necessary training to become enterprise-ready.
With the launch of Wipro ai360, an AI-first innovation ecosystem, the company commits to investing $1 billion in advancing its AI capabilities over the next three years. This ecosystem aims to integrate AI into every platform, tool, and solution used internally and offered to clients.
Thierry Delaporte, the CEO and Managing Director of Wipro Limited, states that artificial intelligence is a fast-moving field and the company expects a fundamental shift ahead for all industries, especially with the emergence of generative AI. He emphasizes that Wipro’s ai360 ecosystem is designed to place responsible AI operations at the heart of the company’s AI work, empowering its employees and being ubiquitous across all operations, processes, and client solutions.
The Wipro ai360 ecosystem will bring together 30,000 experts in data analytics and AI from Wipro with the technology and advisory ecosystem from four global business lines. This collaboration will leverage capabilities across cloud and partnerships, data analytics and AI, design and consulting, cybersecurity, as well as engineering to develop new solutions and embed AI into all processes and practices.
Wipro aims to achieve new levels of agility, speed, and depth in delivery through its new global business line model. Its innovation hub, Lab45, will be an integral part of the Wipro ai360 ecosystem, providing clients with talent, training, scale, research, and co-innovation capabilities to accelerate AI adoption.
In summary, Wipro’s $1 billion investment in AI training for its entire workforce and integration of AI into its operations and client solutions reflects the company’s commitment to harnessing the potential of AI and staying at the forefront of technological advancements. By empowering its employees and building a comprehensive AI ecosystem, Wipro aims to drive value, productivity, and commercial opportunities through the application of AI and generative AI.
