MUMBAI: IBM India and South Asia managing director Sandip Patel said his call for “digital swaraj” reflects businesses’ and govts’ growing need to exercise greater control over their data, technology assets and the systems that manage them.“I have started calling this the era of digital swaraj. In a predominantly digital world and a global digital economy, organisations need a degree of digital sovereignty suited to their level of regulation and the criticality of their operations,” Patel told TOI at its flagship event, IBM Think, held here.Geopolitical developments and regulatory requirements have heightened concerns over data sovereignty, particularly among organisations in regulated sectors such as banking.Companies increasingly want clarity on where their data resides and who controls encryption keys, where the control plane is located and whether compliance can be demonstrated continuously.IBM’s Sovereign Core, announced in March, is designed to address these concerns. The software stack can be deployed in a client or partner-owned data centre, providing cloud-like capabilities while keeping control-plane operations and key management within the customer’s jurisdiction.Built on Sovereign Core, IBM Bharat Core is an AI stack optimised for India, offering reusable Indic AI services, models and connectors across industries. It is benchmarked for quality and scale in Indian scenarios and guides users through the AI lifecycle by recommending suitable building blocks and infrastructure tailored to India’s requirements.IBM is also developing India-specific tools to accelerate Sovereign Core implementation, while its Svaiam reference architecture is designed to help deploy sovereign AI capabilities within govt environments. The shift towards greater control over technology infrastructure is also supporting India’s data centre growth. Patel identified two drivers: companies building capacity in India to support global operations, and Indian enterprises investing in infrastructure they can control themselves.IBM, MeitY Startup Hub to boost deep-tech venturesIBM and MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), an initiative of the ministry of electronics and information technology, plan to accelerate India’s deep-tech startup ecosystem by providing startups access to IBM’s technology expertise, mentorship, enterprise engagement opportunities and skilling programmes. Startups will get access to IBM’s enterprise technologies and innovation platforms to address business use cases. These include IBM watsonx, an enterprise-ready AI and data platform and IBM Bob, an AI coding agent for enterprises.
