IBM Consulting is focusing on the technology as one of its biggest bets to catapult itself further in the Indian ecosystem, in view of the strategic importance of quantum computing in services like finance and security.
The technology giant is investing in three main areas: hybrid cloud, AI and quantum. Dinesh Nirmal, Senior VP at IBM talks about the future of quantum and the talent pool of India.
What kind of technology demand do you see from your clients?
IBM's strategy and focus have always been on how we can help and meet clients where they go. Right now, every client is focused on three things -- one, hybrid cloud; two, agentic AI; and three, quantum. Those are the three core areas clients are focused on.
IBM recently announced the quantum project with the Maharashtra government. How important is quantum technology for the company?
We have made an amazing amount of investment in quantum. In an ongoing collaboration with HSBC, researchers combined quantum and classical computational methods to analyze real-world bond trading data.
The hybrid approach delivered up to a 34 per cent improvement over classical techniques for predicting trade completion -- clear evidence of the potential for current quantum systems, like our IBM Quantum Heron processors, to deliver real business value today.
So that's first kind of external use where that's coming to real life or by which customers are seeing productivity for real use cases in the world. The Maharashtra government was another one by which we really bring quantum to life in India. It's a huge investment for us.
Why do you call it one of your biggest bets?
As the world is generating more data, more people are using computers, the compute need will also increase. That can only be done through quantum. We just also announced Quantum Safe, to bring in encryption even before customers start to use it. We are already seeing the use cases and the need for quantum-related software like Quantum Safe and it's already getting good traction in the market from security and financial verticals.
India's IT talent pool is likely going to come back to India. Has that changed IBM's plans towards India?
India is a huge market for us, not just from the talent perspective, but from also a customer base perspective. So having a hub here is always critical for IBM. We always had a research lab, hardware lab, software lab. Given the customer base, ongoing digitization, growth and the talent pool that's coming, every company would want to have a base in India. So does IBM.
Do you feel that you're going to see the workforce increasing in coming few quarters or an impact due to the productivity brought in for enterprises by AI-based tools like Bob?
If I say as a developer you can now write 30,000 more lines of code somebody has to debug then review the code to make sure it is good. I also talk about the inner loop and outer loop, which is about secure coding.
The next phase is what I call 'literate coding' - as you speak to it, it generates code for you. Natural language can trigger code generation. So I think there's a lot of development happening from a productivity perspective that will want even more developers.
We are moving from a phase where somebody used to write code to somebody speaking in natural language to creation of code. So the technology is changing, which will need more talent that will need more expertise, more skills, but the productivity will continue to improve and increase. We will also need more highly talented people in that phase.
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Published on October 21, 2025
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