Sikka’s vision: AI, self-driving golf cart

Infosys is testing a driverless golf cart, built with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, to demonstrate capability and tap the growing global opportunities for autonomous and connected vehicles.

Vishal Sikka, chief executive officer, spoke about the “How, What and Why” of adopting greater automation and artificial intelligence at the 36th annual general meeting (AGM).

He also spoke about the company’s attempt to create a pool of thousands of engineers with the capability to work on projects in artificial intelligence and tap business opportunities.

“Autonomous driving is something every automobile company will get into, and we are trying to build talent around this,” Sikka said, adding that Infosys was developing the self-driving cart at its Mysuru campus. They are using open-source technologies for this.

“Advances in AI are automating more and more cognitive work,” Sikka said.

He added Infosys was part of Toyota Motors’ connected cars project, and would look to skill more of its people in emerging areas such as drones, robots and cloud.

Sikka, who completes three years as the first non-founder CEO of Infosys, said the company had been able to slowly make the shift to building software-led services that generate high-growth and high-margin businesses.

He also said the company’s software offerings such as NIA, Panaya, Skava and Edgeverve grew 42 per cent in the last fiscal year. The NIA, the artificial intelligence platform, was being implemented with about 70 customers.