WEIGHTED AVERAGEAI in Business
HCLTech's AI Business Grows 62% in a Quarter
What happened.
HCLTech reported Q1 FY27 results on July 13, posting revenue of ₹34,579 crore — up 13.9% year-on-year — and net profit of ₹4,624 crore, up 20.3% year-on-year. The standout number: its Advanced AI business generated $171 million in revenue for the quarter, growing 62.1% year-on-year in constant currency and 10.6% quarter-on-quarter. Net new bookings hit $2.4 billion — the highest Q1 in the company's history. Alongside the results, HCLTech's board approved a ₹3,500 crore investment to build its own AI data centres, targeting 50MW of capacity, marking its entry into AI infrastructure ownership for the first time.
The second order.
The 62% year-on-year growth in Advanced AI revenue is the number that separates HCLTech from the Q1 narrative playing out across the rest of Indian IT. While TCS reports AI annualised revenue at $2.6 billion on a $7.5 billion quarterly base, HCLTech is growing the new category at a rate that will compound quickly if sustained. The data centre announcement is the bigger strategic signal: HCLTech is moving from selling AI services to owning AI infrastructure — which is a different margin structure, a different risk profile, and a different competitive position entirely.
“Did you see HCLTech's AI business grew 62% in a single quarter — and the same day they announced a ₹3,500 crore investment to build their own AI data centres, huh?”
“Yeah, the data centre move is the part that changes the story. HCLTech already has $2.4 billion in new bookings this quarter — their best Q1 ever — and now they are committing ₹3,500 crore to own infrastructure that can scale to 50MW. CEO C Vijayakumar said they want to "benefit disproportionately from AI-native and AI-amplified opportunities" — and owning compute is how you do that rather than just renting it from hyperscalers. The real question is whether ₹3,500 crore is enough to matter at scale, or whether this is a signal of intent that needs a much larger follow-on commitment to be credible. At 50MW, this is roughly a quarter of what Reliance is building for Meta alone in Jamnagar.”
TCS Crosses $2.6 Billion in AI Revenue
What happened.
TCS reported Q1 FY27 results on July 9, with consolidated revenue of ₹72,275 crore — up 13.9% year-on-year — and net profit of ₹13,349 crore, up 4.6% year-on-year. Annualised AI revenue reached $2.6 billion, up 13.6% from $2.3 billion in the previous quarter — the fastest sequential AI revenue growth TCS has reported. The company added 9,300 net employees in the quarter, its highest quarterly net addition in over three years. Total contract value stood at $9.5 billion, down from $12 billion in the previous quarter. CEO K. Krithivasan said he expects demand to improve in Q2, and highlighted six mega AI deals signed over the last five quarters, including an $800 million global business transformation deal with Swedish industrial firm SKF.
The second order.
TCS crossing $2.6 billion in annualised AI revenue is the sector's clearest evidence that the transition from talking about AI to billing for AI is underway. The SKF deal — an $800 million global transformation mandate — is the template for what AI-led contracts look like at TCS's scale: long-term, outcome-oriented, and far larger than traditional managed services renewals. The 9,300 net hires also matter: in a quarter where every analyst expected headcount to fall because of AI efficiency, TCS is hiring, which signals that AI transformation work is creating new demand for people, not just replacing them.
“Did you see TCS just added 9,300 employees in a quarter — its highest hiring in three years — while simultaneously growing AI revenue 13.6% to $2.6 billion, huh?”
“For sure, and the SKF deal is the one to understand. An $800 million global transformation with a Fortune 500 industrial manufacturer — that is not a cost-reduction play, it is a full business model rebuild using AI. TCS now has six of those mega AI deals signed in five quarters. The TCV of $9.5 billion this quarter is lower than the $12 billion last quarter, which is the concern — the pipeline is converting but not replenishing at the same rate. What I am watching is whether Infosys and Wipro can show a similar AI revenue cadence when they report next week, or whether TCS and HCLTech are pulling away from the pack on the deals that will matter in FY28 and beyond.”
Google Brings Gemini to 25 Indian Languages
What happened.
At the Google I/O Connect India 2026 summit in Bengaluru on July 14, Google announced Gemini Live now supports 25 Indian languages and dialects — including Sanskrit, Bhojpuri, and Maithili — making it the broadest multilingual voice AI deployment in India by any global platform. Google DeepMind simultaneously launched its AI Research Foundations curriculum: a free 56-hour programme in partnership with NASSCOM and IISc Bengaluru to train learners to build and fine-tune large language models. Researchers at AIIMS Delhi are using Google's MedGemma open AI models to develop India-specific diagnostic tools for leprosy and reproductive health — with the resulting models to be released back to the Indian developer community. Google also announced its Android and Play Store ecosystem generated ₹5.3 lakh crore for Indian app publishers and the broader economy in 2025, up 28% year-on-year.
The second order.
Google's 25-language Gemini rollout is the competitive pressure point that Sarvam AI — which built its entire unicorn case on multilingual Indian language models — now has to answer. A free, globally scaled voice AI that speaks Bhojpuri and Maithili, backed by Google's infrastructure and distribution through Android on 600 million Indian devices, is a very different competitive threat than any other multilingual AI deployment that has come before it. The AIIMS-MedGemma collaboration is also significant: Google is embedding its models into India's most credible public health institution, which creates a reference deployment that private hospitals and health-tech companies will find difficult to ignore.
“Have you seen Google just launched Gemini in 25 Indian languages at I/O Connect — including Sanskrit and Bhojpuri — on a platform that reaches 600 million Android devices in India, huh?”
“Honestly, the Sarvam angle is what I keep coming back to. Sarvam raised $234 million at a $1.5 billion valuation in June specifically on the thesis that India needs sovereign multilingual AI. Google just responded by shipping Gemini Live in 25 Indian languages for free, with AIIMS doing real clinical deployments on MedGemma, and 56-hour free LLM training through IISc. Google is not building a sovereign AI model — but at 25 languages and 600 million Android devices, it does not need to. The real question is whether enterprise and government buyers care enough about data sovereignty and local control to pay a premium for Sarvam, or whether free and widely distributed beats sovereign every time when budgets are tight. Curious whether IndiaAI Mission starts steering procurement toward Sarvam more explicitly as a counterweight.”
HCLTech Is Hiring Leaders for Its New Data Centre Unit
What happened.
Alongside its Q1 FY27 results on July 13, HCLTech announced it is building a dedicated team to execute its ₹3,500 crore AI data centre investment — a 50MW facility programme that marks the company's first move into owned AI infrastructure. CEO C. Vijayakumar confirmed the company is hiring infrastructure and AI operations leadership specifically for this initiative, distinct from its existing IT services delivery organisation. The data centre business will operate as a separate strategic unit under the HCLTech portfolio.
The second order.
Standing up a dedicated data centre leadership unit inside an IT services company is a structural hire, not just a talent addition. HCLTech is essentially creating a new business line — one that competes with Yotta, NTT, and eventually Reliance on physical AI infrastructure, rather than with TCS and Infosys on services revenue. The people running this unit will need a completely different background from IT services delivery: real estate, power, cooling, network interconnect, and hyperscaler negotiation — skills that are scarce inside any Indian IT company today.
Total Contract Value (TCV)
Total Contract Value, or TCV, is the full value of a new client deal added up across its entire contracted duration — so a five-year contract worth $100 million per year has a TCV of $500 million, even if revenue is recognised gradually over time.
It matters because TCV is how IT companies signal future revenue — a strong TCV quarter means the company has locked in work that will convert to income over the next several years, while a weak TCV quarter is an early warning that future revenues may slow even if the current quarter looks healthy.
TCS reported a TCV of $9.5 billion this week — down from $12 billion last quarter — which is why analysts are watching whether the next few quarters can replenish the pipeline fast enough to keep revenue growth on track even as the AI transformation deal cycle accelerates.
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