Inside Wipro’s Innovation Network: CTO Sandhya Arun on ethics, AI-first delivery and reimagining the enterprise

At a media roundtable in Bengaluru yesterday, Sandhya Arun, Chief Technology Officer at Wipro, went beyond corporate talking points to offer a candid view of how the company is reimagining innovation. From the launch of the Wipro Innovation Network to her unflinching stance on AI ethics and delivery transformation, she outlined a vision that is both practical and ambitious.

Moving from labs to networks

Wipro believes that innovation can no longer happen in closed rooms. Wipro Innovation Network (WIN) is designed to accelerate strategic, client-centric co-innovation. The network will leverage frontier technologies ranging from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Quantum Computing to solve some of the most challenging problems for clients across industries.

“As a company, we believe that collaboration fuels innovation,” said Srini Pallia, CEO and Managing Director, Wipro. “The Wipro Innovation Network is a catalyst for AI-powered co-innovation. By bringing together our global clients, partners, academia, and tech communities, we aim to accelerate innovation that solves real-world challenges, unlocks bold new possibilities, and drives competitive edge for our clients.”

The 60,000 sq. ft. Innovation Lab in Kodathi, Bengaluru, is now a flagship hub where clients work with Wipro experts to explore frontier technologies. Other centres in Mountain View, London, Sydney and Dubai extend this network globally.

WIN focuses on five frontier themes: agentic AI, embodied AI and robotics, quantum computing, blockchain and digital ledger technologies, and quantum and AI safe cyber resilience.

Applied innovation in action

During the roundtable, Wipro showcased real-world solutions that illustrate WIN’s approach. BuildAI is an AI-powered SDLC orchestration tool that accelerates development and boosts collaboration. InspectAI uses drones, robotic dogs and crawlers to transform plant inspections into safer, predictive workflows. Wipro showcased its quantum solution for drug discovery, designed to tackle molecular optimisation challenges and potentially cut down years in pharmaceutical R&D.

These solutions, along with Smart Factories, Wealth AI and the Cloud Car, demonstrate how Wipro is applying AI-first thinking to reshape industries.

Ethics and governance matter

When I asked her directly about the ethical framework around AI, Arun was clear that responsibility sits at the centre of Wipro’s adoption strategy. “We have a strong Responsible AI leader, Ivana, and a council that meets every week with representatives from across the company,” she said. “AI cannot own IP. We have had deep legal discussions on patents and what we must put into contracts.”

On productivity claims, Arun was emphatic. “Do not call out a number. It has no mathematical foundation and it varies by client context. Beyond productivity, the real question is how to reimagine the enterprise with an AI-first mindset.”

The Responsible AI programme is led by Ivana Bartoletti, Wipro’s Global Chief Privacy & AI Governance Officer. A well-known voice on AI ethics and author of An Artificial Revolution: On Power, Politics and AI, she co-founded the network Women Leading in AI and advises global institutions on governance and rights. At Wipro she anchors the Responsible AI Council, ensuring innovation is backed by legal defensibility and ethical guardrails.

Shifting delivery from tactical to strategic

I also asked her whether developers would move into more strategic roles as AI takes over repetitive work. Arun responded with conviction. “Much of the tactical work is now AI assisted or AI taken over,” she said. “Humans must become supervisors of AI, making judgments and reimagining processes. Age does not matter. Without strong foundations in business, software and data engineering you cannot use AI effectively.”

She described how hackathons are now won by consultants from mergers and acquisitions or presales, not just engineers. “People who understand business and customer experience can leverage AI better,” she noted. Wipro is embedding this mindset in its NextGen associates fresh from campus and has mandated AI training for leadership, including board members.

From pilots to outcomes

For Arun, impact is the only measure that matters. An idea must become a client solution and then scale across industries. This is backed by Wipro’s Horizon programme, which funds innovations with both near-term ROI and long-term potential.

On the commercial side, she said, “Clients do not care how many agents or people are inside the box. They want outcomes, quality and sustained impact. Pricing is increasingly moving towards outcome-based models.”

Examples of this shift include everyday agent solutions for leave and travel management, contract analysis and M&A due diligence, which reduce weeks of effort to hours with humans still in the loop.

The bigger picture

The Innovation Network is powered by around 200 direct innovation staff and 100 distinguished technologists, supported by thousands more through ventures, partners and crowdsourcing. “Criticism of R&D spend is easy,” Arun said in closing. “What matters is impact, ideas that transform client businesses and shape industries.”

Wipro’s AI game

Wipro’s AI game is clear. By combining a distributed network of labs, start-ups, partners, and academic collaborations with a strong focus on ethics and delivery transformation, the company is moving beyond pilots to industry-scale solutions. From agentic AI to quantum and blockchain, Sandhya Arun’s vision places Wipro in the middle of some of the most consequential shifts in enterprise technology. If the roundtable showed anything, it is that Wipro wants to lead not only in deploying AI, but in reimagining how enterprises work, deliver, and compete in the years ahead.