India's digital infrastructure development has been a "game-changer", putting the country ahead of most other nations, Databricks CEO and Co-founder Ali Ghodsi has said. At a press conference here on Wednesday at the Databricks Data + AI Summit 2025, Ghodsi said that India is "on the upswing" at a time when recession is a concern in several other regions and nations.
"What has happened in the last decade, where they've built a lot of digital infrastructure in India, is a game-changer. We don't have that even here, in other countries. India is now ahead on digital infrastructure compared to most other countries in the world," Ghodsi said in response to a question by PTI on India.
This "of course, makes it much easier to innovate" in data and AI, he said. Ghodsi added that Databricks is very excited to partner with new companies in the field of AI as well as with "companies that have been around a long time" such as "the Tatas of the world that we're partnering with as well."
"It's a gigantic market and with the pivots that are happening in strategy around the world, India is becoming more important. So very excited... it's like (there are) just opportunities in India, and it seems there are no troubles on the horizon. Fingers crossed," he said.
Responding to a question on the situation with immigrants in the US and its impact on the company's hiring initiative, Ghodsi said he has lived in nine countries and "I think this (US) still is one of the best countries for immigrants to come here even today." He pointed out that 20-30 years ago, it was more common for an IIT topper in India to want to come to the US in search for career opportunities.
He, however, noted that this has changed in the last 5-10 years."You stay in India, stay in Bangalore, get a really high-paying job there. You have your family there, you have the culture there. Why move to the United States? That's already been happening for many, many, many years. So (the) trend is already kind of happening." Noting that this is now the reality, Ghodsi said the company now hires talent in India.
"We're doubling down on Bangalore. We hired a huge engineering team. We target the IITs," he said, mentioning an instance where the company was hiring four people and had 700 people from the IITs apply in Bangalore. "That's a great market for us."
In response to another question, he said that the company is heavily investing in India and other Asian markets like South Korea and Japan."We're also investing a lot in India, which is also doing really, really great. So like Asia in general is a big market opportunity. We're investing ahead of the game there," he said.
Adding that the company is "so bullish" on what's happening in Asia, he said that the region can move faster on data and AI. Asserting that Asia does not have the same restrictions, and data and AI are not as tightly regulated as in Europe and America, he said, "So that just makes it amazing for us data and AI geeks, so we're very excited."
He further underlined that Asia is high on his mind when undertaking financial planning for Databricks. Ghodsi said he tells his team to "go even more aggressive. More in India, More in Korea, more in Japan every year."So that is our strategy, and we're going to continue doing that. It's growing very fast. It's a much more diverse and bigger continent and more people, unlike Europe which is a little bit more homogeneous. Asia is really very different," he said.
Databricks, a Data and AI company, is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe. The company announced a USD 100 million investment in global data and AI education, aimed at closing the industry-wide talent gap and preparing the next generation of data and AI engineers, data analysts and data scientists.
The Databricks Data + AI Summit 2025 is a global event bringing together thousands of data practitioners, leaders and visionaries from more than 160 countries to explore the convergence of data and AI.
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