Software engineers and Information Technology firms believe that despite the impending global economic slowdown of 2023, Bangalore’s new demand for Artificial Intelligence will keep the sector growing.
Bengaluru, January 29, 2022: A report released by Oxford Economics says that Bangalore will have the fastest growing economy among Asia-Pacific cities in 2023, owing to its continuously expanding Information Technology (IT) Sector. Software engineers say that the artificial intelligence market will be the key factor that will drive the city’s growth this year.
“Most jobs that are coming in today are looking for people who can handle Artificial Intelligence (AI) rather than coding. Even my company does that,” said Aman Kukde, a software engineer working for LifeSignals, a wearable biosensors company headquartered in Bangalore.
“Since most companies have to deal with immense datasets today, AI proves to be an appropriate solution. We are using machine learning and AI on a day-to-day basis to improve our services,” he added.
According to data released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Karnataka was the country’s largest exporter of IT and IT Enabled Services for the Financial Year 2022, with a year-on-year growth of 22 per cent. Companies like deBRANDe say that government policies have helped them along the way.
“The Bangalore Software Technology Park of India (STPI) has enabled the city to emerge as one of the largest IT clusters across the globe,” said Amritpal Singh, the founder of the company.
“Since we focus on providing integrated IT solutions to our clients abroad, we invest primarily in developing indigenous AI and related tools. This has helped us grow our software exports from the state and has generated more employment in our company.”
He added that entrepreneurial opportunities have increased in the state as more start-ups are venturing into the AI industry.
The report goes on to predict 2023 as a year of global recession, starting in Q4 of 2022 and lasting three straight quarters in world GDP per person, with Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) being widely hit.
Market analyst Roshan George said, “Local factors like the uncertain recovery in supply chains, and the somewhat pessimistic global outlook towards COVID-19 in China will directly affect Indian markets this year. However, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, will grow by more than six per cent in 2023.”
He explained that the strength of these cities comes from the dynamic economics of south India, which has attracted many investments in the manufacturing and information and communication technology (ICT) sector.
“The ICT sector is key in driving Bengaluru’s success in 2023. It accounts for one quarter of the city’s Gross Value Added (GVA) and due to the unique combination of foreign and local investment, the city will be relatively resilient to a global trade slump,” he said.
Experts believe that with almost 40 per cent of India’s total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) coming into the IT sector in Bangalore, the city will continue to be a hotbed for the state’s growing economy not just in 2023, but for the next few years as well.
Dr. Bipin Sony of the BR Ambedkar School of Economics said, “This year, Karnataka again attracted almost half of all the nation’s FDI. It comes as no surprise, then, that the exports have increased as well. I believe that the trend will continue comfortably for another five years if nothing like another COVID wave hits us.”
Research now shows that Bangalore’s large information and communication technology sector will help the city resist imminent global economic woes, thus shielding it from the inevitable 2023 global market slowdown.
