The twin announcements, made by TCS CEO K. Krithivasan at a press conference in Kolkata, signal the company’s intent to position itself at the forefront of the AI revolution in enterprise technology. With revenues exceeding $30 billion and a workforce of over 600,000, TCS is among the world’s largest IT services firms, and its moves in the AI space carry significant implications for the global technology industry.

The Oracle AI Lab

The Oracle AI Data Platform Lab, housed at TCS’s Kolkata campus, is the first facility of its kind in India. It combines Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and database technologies with AI and machine learning capabilities to create an environment where enterprises can experiment with, develop, and deploy AI-powered data solutions.

The lab offers enterprises a sandbox environment to test AI use cases using their own data — or synthetic data that mimics real-world scenarios — before deploying solutions in production. Use cases include AI-driven supply chain optimisation, predictive maintenance for manufacturing, intelligent customer service systems, fraud detection in financial services, and AI-powered healthcare analytics.

“The gap between AI proof-of-concept and production deployment is where most enterprises get stuck,” said Krithivasan. “This lab is designed to bridge that gap. We provide the infrastructure, the expertise, and the frameworks for enterprises to move from experimentation to real-world AI adoption.”

The choice of Kolkata for the lab is significant. While Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune have traditionally been India’s technology hubs, TCS’s investment in Kolkata reflects the city’s growing importance in the IT ecosystem. The West Bengal government has been actively courting technology investments, offering incentives and improved infrastructure to attract companies to the state. (Related: Meta Partners With Reliance to Build First AI Data…)

The Anthropic Partnership

The partnership with Anthropic, announced alongside the Oracle lab launch, takes TCS into the frontier of generative AI. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, has emerged as one of the leading AI companies globally, with its Claude models competing directly with OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini for supremacy in the large language model space.

Under the partnership, TCS will integrate Anthropic’s Claude models into its enterprise solutions, offering clients AI capabilities for document processing, code generation, customer interaction, research synthesis, and complex analytical tasks. The partnership also includes joint research initiatives focused on developing industry-specific AI applications and ensuring the safe and responsible deployment of AI systems in enterprise environments.

“Anthropic’s focus on AI safety and reliability aligns with our own values and with what our enterprise clients demand,” said Krithivasan. “When we deploy AI in a bank or a hospital, accuracy and safety are not optional — they are prerequisites. Anthropic understands this in a way that sets them apart.”

India’s Enterprise AI Landscape

TCS’s announcements come at a time when Indian IT companies are racing to establish themselves as AI-native service providers. Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra have all made significant investments in AI capabilities, recognising that the technology represents both a threat and an opportunity for the traditional IT services model. (Related: Red Balloon Aerospace Launches India’s First…)

The threat is that AI could automate many of the routine coding, testing, and support tasks that have been the bread and butter of Indian IT outsourcing. The opportunity is that enterprises worldwide need help adopting and implementing AI — and Indian IT companies, with their deep client relationships, domain expertise, and scale, are well-positioned to be the guides for this transition.

According to a recent report by Nasscom, India’s AI services market is expected to grow from $4 billion in 2025 to $17 billion by 2030, driven by demand from enterprises in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. TCS, with its first-mover advantage in establishing dedicated AI labs and strategic AI partnerships, is positioning itself to capture a significant share of this market.

The Kolkata Angle

The launch in Kolkata also has significance for the city’s technology aspirations. Once India’s commercial capital and the home of some of the country’s earliest technology ventures, Kolkata has been overshadowed by Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune in the IT boom. TCS’s investment — along with similar moves by other technology companies in recent years — suggests that Kolkata may be entering a new phase of technology-led growth.

The West Bengal government, under new Chief Minister Shubhendu Adhikari, has signalled a renewed focus on attracting technology investments to the state. The TCS lab is likely to generate hundreds of high-skill jobs in Kolkata and could catalyse a broader ecosystem of AI startups, research institutions, and technology vendors in the city.

For TCS, the message is clear: the future of IT services is AI, and the company intends to lead that future — from Kolkata to the world.

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India’s telecommunications industry is entering a defining period in 2026 as state-run BSNL accelerates its long-awaited 4G network expansion with an order for 20,000 additional sites while the three private operators, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, prepare a coordinated tariff increase of 10 to 20 per cent expected by mid-year. The parallel developments will reshape the competitive landscape of India’s telecom sector, affecting over 1.15 billion mobile subscribers and influencing how Indians access the internet, communicate, and consume digital services.

The tariff reset, the first significant industry-wide price increase in nearly two years, comes as telecom operators seek to bolster revenues, repair balance sheets stretched by 5G investment, and increase returns on the massive capital deployed during the spectrum auctions and network rollouts of recent years.

BSNL’s 4G Push: 20,000 Sites to Strengthen Coverage

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is pressing ahead with its fourth-generation network expansion into FY2026-27, having floated tenders for approximately 20,000 additional 4G sites to complement the sites already deployed. BSNL’s CMD Robert Ravi confirmed that the company is progressing well with its rollout and is evaluating strategies for future indigenous technology upgrades, including a potential path toward 5G using domestically developed equipment.

BSNL’s 4G network, built on technology developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics and Tata Consultancy Services rather than foreign equipment vendors like Ericsson, Nokia, or Huawei, represents India’s most ambitious telecommunications self-reliance project. The approach aligns with the government’s broader push for technology sovereignty but has resulted in deployment timelines that have lagged behind private operators’ 5G rollouts.

The 20,000 additional sites are expected to strengthen BSNL’s coverage across rural, semi-urban, and tier-three cities where the company has traditionally held a strong subscriber base. Many of these areas are underserved by private operators, who have prioritised 5G deployment in urban centres where revenue per user is higher. BSNL’s mandate to provide universal coverage means it serves as the connectivity provider of last resort in areas where commercial operators find the economics challenging.

Airtel Expands 5G Footprint Across UP East

Bharti Airtel’s aggressive 5G expansion continues, with the company announcing the deployment of more than 4,300 new 5G sites across eastern Uttar Pradesh over the past 12 months. The expansion makes UP East one of Airtel’s most strategic markets and demonstrates the company’s commitment to building a digital backbone that reaches beyond metro cities into the heartland of India’s most populous state.

Amit Gupta, CEO of Bharti Airtel UP East, described the deployment as enabling growth, inclusion, and innovation across the region. The company has complemented its network investment with consumer-facing plans designed to drive adoption, including a fully unlimited data plan for 28 days priced at Rs 399 that provides unlimited 4G and 5G data alongside unlimited calls. The plan targets smartphone users who want seamless streaming, studying, and working without worrying about data limits.

India’s overall 5G infrastructure has crossed 469,000 base stations and 250 million subscribers as of early 2026, with Jio and Airtel accounting for the vast majority of deployments. The scale of India’s 5G rollout is impressive by global standards, though the monetisation challenge remains as operators search for use cases beyond faster mobile broadband that can justify the capital invested.

Tariff Hike: Why It Is Coming and What to Expect

The anticipated tariff increase of 10 to 20 per cent by mid-2026 has been flagged by multiple industry analysts, with Jefferies modelling a headline hike of 15 per cent that would translate into approximately 14 per cent growth in average revenue per user by FY27. The hike is being described as an operational necessity rather than an opportunistic price increase, driven by the need to generate returns on 5G investment, service debt obligations, and fund ongoing network expansion.

All three private operators are expected to move in roughly coordinated fashion, as no single player can afford to raise prices unilaterally without risking subscriber churn to competitors. The pattern mirrors the tariff hikes of 2021 and 2024, where operators announced increases within weeks of each other, creating a de facto industry-wide reset that lifted the revenue floor for all participants.

For consumers, the impact will vary depending on plan choice and usage patterns. Prepaid subscribers, who constitute the majority of India’s mobile user base, will see the most direct impact as recharge prices increase. Postpaid subscribers may be partially insulated through bundled plans and corporate connections that absorb some of the cost increase. The key question is whether the hike will be severe enough to trigger downtrading, where subscribers move to lower-value plans, or whether the value delivered by 4G and 5G services justifies the higher prices.

Vodafone Idea’s Recovery Depends on Execution

For Vodafone Idea, the tariff hike is particularly crucial as the company continues its recovery following years of financial distress, spectrum debt, and subscriber losses. Vi has begun its own 4G and 5G network expansion following a rights issue that raised capital for investment, but it remains significantly behind Jio and Airtel in terms of coverage, speed, and subscriber numbers.

Industry observers note that Vi’s ability to retain and attract subscribers during the tariff hike period will be a key indicator of whether the company’s turnaround is sustainable. If Vi can match the price increases of its competitors without disproportionate subscriber losses, it will signal that the three-player market structure that regulators prefer is stabilising. However, if Vi loses share during the transition, the effective duopoly of Jio and Airtel could deepen further.

Impact on Digital India and the Broader Economy

The telecommunications sector’s evolution has implications far beyond phone bills. India’s digital economy, from UPI payments to e-commerce to telemedicine, runs on mobile connectivity, and any change in the cost or quality of that connectivity ripples through the broader economy. The tariff hike could modestly slow the growth of data consumption among price-sensitive users while simultaneously funding the network improvements that enable more advanced digital services.

The government’s Digital India programme and the expansion of services like Credit Line on UPI depend on universal, affordable mobile connectivity. Policymakers are watching the tariff situation carefully, balancing the operators’ legitimate need for higher revenues against the risk that price increases could exclude low-income users from the digital economy at precisely the moment when digital inclusion is becoming a policy priority.

BSNL’s 4G expansion provides a partial safety net, as the government-owned operator typically offers plans at lower price points than private competitors. However, BSNL’s network quality and coverage gaps mean it cannot yet serve as a full substitute for subscribers who switch away from private operators due to price sensitivity. The coming months will reveal how effectively the Indian telecom market balances the competing demands of network investment, consumer affordability, and industry sustainability.

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Revenue Mix Reflects a Diversified Sector

The FY26 revenue breakdown highlights the breadth of the industry: IT services at $149 billion, business process management at $59 billion, engineering research and development at $63 billion, software products at $23 billion, and hardware at $21 billion. Indian IT exports are projected to rise 5.6 per cent year on year to $246 billion, up from $233 billion in FY25.

Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar described FY25 and FY26 as a structural transition phase. While enterprise spending was not cut during the period, it was redirected towards resilience, productivity and AI-led transformation rather than discretionary expansion.

AI Drives New Revenue Streams

The rise of generative AI has created both headwinds and opportunities. India’s largest IT companies, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies, have built dedicated AI practices and reported growing order books for AI consulting, implementation and managed services. AI-related revenue is estimated to contribute roughly $8 billion to the sector in FY26, up from $4.5 billion the previous year.

Global AI labs are also increasing their footprint in India. Anthropic opened a Bengaluru office earlier this year, joining OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta AI in establishing Indian engineering centres. Domestically, the launch of BharatGPT-2, India’s sovereign AI model, has demonstrated the country’s ambition to develop homegrown language intelligence capabilities.

Hiring Outlook Remains Positive

The industry is expected to add 135,000 jobs on a net basis in FY26, taking the total headcount to 5.95 million. While this represents a slower pace of hiring than pre-pandemic years, Nasscom noted that the quality of roles is shifting, with greater demand for AI engineers, data scientists and cloud architects.

Fresh graduate intake has stabilised after two years of contraction, with TCS, Infosys, and Wipro all confirming campus hiring targets for FY27. However, industry analysts caution that routine coding and testing roles face continued pressure from AI-driven automation tools.

Challenges on the Horizon

Despite the positive growth outlook, the sector faces a triple challenge: intensifying competition from AI-native firms, a strong US dollar that cuts into margins for rupee-denominated costs, and regulatory uncertainty around data localisation norms. The broader technology landscape in India is also evolving rapidly, with telecom, fintech and deeptech startups competing for the same talent pool.

Industry leaders remain confident that India’s advantages of scale, engineering depth and delivery resilience will sustain growth. OpenAI’s recent media acquisition ahead of its planned IPO signals how aggressively global tech firms are diversifying, a trend that could unlock further outsourcing opportunities for Indian service providers.

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