India rising as Big Tech breaks bank for AI talent

Economic Times

a day ago

ETtech With Meta's Mark Zuckerberg hunting for top AI talent with $100 million packages, other large tech companies may follow suit and the price of AI talent globally is expected to be pushed up, experts said. India however retains an edge due to the lower cost and may see some jobs being routed here.Indian AI talent generally costs around 15–25% of what companies pay in global hubs like the US, particularly for senior and research-level roles, according to AMS data.
Salaries in the US or UK/Europe are almost five times more than the Indian average for similar skill sets, as per Teamlease Digital. For mid-level skills such ML Engineers or Data scientists with experience, the salary difference is about two to three times. 'We will continue to see more AI jobs routed to India, especially for engineering, implementation, and mid-tier research roles, as global salary inflation and talent shortages make India's cost-quality equation quite favourable,' said Roop Kaistha, regional managing director-APAC, AMS.India's cost advantage remains meaningful, particularly for execution and scaled development roles in AI, ML Ops, and data engineering, she said. While senior AI researchers in the US attract packages of $500,000 to $1 million or more, in India they earn about Rs 60-80 lakhs annually, as per recruitment firm Adecco.'This (Meta's) offer raises the benchmark rates for this talent worldwide,' said Sunil Chemankotil, country manager for India at recruitment firm Adecco. 'The dual advantage India offers is cost and talent arbitrage - this will help organisations to scale up rapidly.'The country has a growing AI talent pool, particularly in applied AI and engineering, he said.However, India still lags in the top-end of AI R&D talent that is likely to bag the top-dollar packages globally and needs to significantly scale up this kind of talent and expertise, experts said.Today, most AI-related jobs that come to India are in areas like data modelling, annotation and AI/ML integration, said Neeti Sharma, CEO, Teamlease Digital. For India to go up the value chain towards innovation driven roles, we need to make investments in creating a continuously upskilling ecosystem that enables us to get on to core AI innovation.'For advanced research, talent matters more than cost—global companies will pay top dollar for the best people, wherever they are,' Sharma said, adding that migration of jobs to India will continue given the large pool of foundational tech skills needed for AI and that comes at a competitive cost.'Indian talent remains cost-competitive and highly skilled in implementation roles but is only beginning to break into the uppermost tier of global AI R&D leadership,' said Kaistha.In the foreseeable future, and until the startup ecosystem in India matures further, the ultra-elite, $100 million 'superintelligence' researchers will remain concentrated in places like the US, she added.But Indian-origin researchers are already leading global AI labs, and with continued investment in research and education, the IndiaAI Mission, and the startup ecosystem, India will be able to compete at the highest levels, said Chemmankotil. Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Inside TechM CEO's 'baptism by fire' and the blaze he still needs to douse
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