Investments in 5G network infra and IoT applications most critical for Indian companies over next 3 years: Survey

Businesses in India are planning major investments in digital technologies to support ambitious expansion plans after lessons learnt from the pandemic. New findings from an annual survey of technology decision-makers, by Equinix, Inc., suggest that 96% of IT leaders in India indicated their organization is planning to expand into new markets in the next 12 months. A majority (67%) of those planning an expansion said they are most likely to support it by deploying virtually in the short-term and then building permanent physical infrastructure when needed.

The pandemic also continues to have a significant impact on Indian businesses’ digital strategies with 63% of respondents citing that their IT strategy has become more aggressive and ambitious because of the pandemic. Indeed, 65% confirm their IT budgets have increased as a direct outcome of its legacy - an insight into the now broadly acknowledged necessity for robust digital infrastructure to pivot to evolving business needs in an instant. Furthermore, a majority of respondents (63%) believed the technology changes and investments implemented during the pandemic are here to stay.

More than half of Indian businesses (57%) surveyed for the Equinix 2022 Global Tech Trends Survey are observing a significant positive business impact from having a strong 5G network to take advantage of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT). At the same time, nearly half of them (43%) realized the need to rearchitect their IT infrastructure to ensure it supports 5G capabilities. With respect to Indian organizations’ three-year technology strategy, 5G network infrastructure is perceived as the most important (44%), followed by IoT applications (34%) and edge computing (32%).  

Meanwhile, 65% of respondents in India said they expect increased spending on carrier-neutral colocation solutions, while 71% said they intend to increase investment in interconnection services to increase speed of connectivity and reduce latency (53%), increase flexibility of connectivity (51%) and improve network optimization (50%).

On the other hand, a number of potentially limiting factors were also identified by Indian IT decision makers when it came to business success, with cyber attacks highlighted as a particular area of concern (78%). In addition, 76% faced challenges in working with more complex digital supply chains and 76% specified the global supply chain issues and shortages as key threats to their business. These continued supply chain issues appear to be driving a need for more virtualization, with growth aspirations underpinned by significant planned investment in digital infrastructure.

In addition, the survey revealed that in India:

Evolution of Web 3: A majority of Indian IT leaders (52%) expect Web 3 to replace Web 2 within the next 1-5 years. 79% of respondents indicate that their business has a Web 3 strategy in place already.

Cloud migration continues: 40% of IT leaders in India deploy public cloud, while 93% of them reported working with two or more cloud providers. 86% of Indian IT leaders said they plan to move more business functions to the cloud. Of those respondents, 79% of them plan to move their security functions to the cloud, and 60% intend to move databases to the cloud.

Focusing on hiring talent from small towns: The technology landscape in India is experiencing a war for talent. 95% of Indian IT leaders said there are opportunities to hire from smaller towns in India to tap into fresh talent pools.

Focusing on sustainability: While innovating, digital leaders are keeping a close eye on the sustainability of their IT infrastructure. In India, 85% said they have commitments made to science-based targets, while 84% indicated that their customers want to know they are taking steps to reduce carbon footprint of their IT infrastructure.