AI is an assistant to humans... it will have net zero effect on jobs: Flex’s Revathi Advaithi

On India’s role in AI, manufacturing and data centre capacity, Advaithi sees significant potential.

The world today is in the midst of rapid, multifaceted technological evolution that’s changing how we live, work, communicate, commute and interact. Few tech leaders have the vantage position of such a time that Revathi Advaithi, CEO of Flex, commands. The technology company works across industries - data centres, automotive tech, consumer tech and health care - laying foundations on which other companies build their products.

Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi during the 22nd edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. (HT Photo)

“My thesis is, AI is an assistant to humans. The debate of whether AI takes jobs away, of course, has relevancy to a company like ours which has a large employee base but I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I think it’ll have a net zero effect in terms of employment overall. That’s controversial because a lot of people don’t believe that,” said Advaithi, in a virtual session at the 22nd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

But it isn’t just AI as we know it, but a looming spectre of AGI, or artificial general intelligence, which is supposed to be even smarter.

“It (the debate) is a lot about AGI that is going to replace humans. I think the productivity boost that AI will bring will probably not reduce jobs directly, but redistribute them jobs and up-skill the workforce overall,” she added.

Advaithi emphasised the importance of “co-pilots” - AI-based assistants customised for specialised workflows across industries.

“I agree with the co-pilot concept of AI agents. It’ll all be about empowering humans, not replacing them,” she said, drawing from her approach towards understanding people and “what makes us tick”.

The implementation of AI at Flex illustrates her approach. The company has built their own instance of an AI tool that employees across use. “We had to do that pretty quickly because people were beginning to use tools such as Anthropic or ChatGPT.”

This AI tool finds deep integration within their infrastructure and systems, and can help with a variety of workflow tasks including drafting emails, transcribing meetings—the sort of tasks one would expect from a generative AI tool.

For Flex, the scale means they’ve to weigh implementation within their systems. The tech company has more than 140,000 employees worldwide, that presence spread across 30 countries with more than 100 facilities.

The basis of Advaithi’s approach towards technology and how it must be deployed stems from the rather unique choice she made, at least for that time, with her education at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. “I ended up becoming a mechanical engineer in Pilani, which was an odd choice, because girls really don’t end up becoming a mechanical engineer. I enjoyed the hands-on aspect of engineering, ended up on the factory floor because I just loved how things are made,” she said.

It is that attention to detail which has perhaps made the difference for Flex Ltd., at a time when tech companies are looking for ways to cut costs and find new avenues for revenue. In the quarterly numbers for Q2 2024, the company reported revenue of $6.5 billion, alongside a 40% growth year-on-year in their data centre portfolio. Their businesses include developing solutions across industries including health care and automotive tech.

Flex’s group companies include Infinex that focuses on semiconductors and Irumold that builds for healthcare and pharma industries as well as Anord Mardix, which builds critical power solutions for design and manufacturing processes.

Advaithi had an inkling, as she puts it, that the “world was going towards computer science and AI understood the heartbeat and pulse of how things were getting made”.

On India’s role in AI, manufacturing and data centre capacity, Advaithi sees significant potential.

“Infrastructure improvement, streamlined processes, reduced bureaucracy, and incentive schemes like Digital India and PLI have helped build overall manufacturing capability. Today, we make iPhones in India, unthinkable five years ago. India has benefited from geopolitics and supply chain redistribution, and deservedly so,” she said.

The investments and policies emphasising on developing a semiconductor ecosystem, which is resource- and time-intensive, should hold the country in good stead for further inroads into the AI domain.

“Building a semiconductor ecosystem is not easy. I would say, from a design capability, India has a lot of very able people to help with that. In terms of actually manufacturing fabs, there’s a significant role that India can play,” Advaithi explained.

For Advaithi, there can be very few compromises. Technology innovation, supply chain resilience and sustainable manufacturing remain non-negotiable priorities.

Is the world at another pivotal moment in time, like a few years ago, when cloud computing gave technology companies a new trajectory to work with? Has artificial intelligence made clear the importance of ramping up compute power?

“It’s even more significant than that,” said Advaithi.

“If you think about the growth that’s happening with data centres, numbers are staggering. In just the last few weeks, around $300 billion of capital investment has been committed into data centres. I think the growth is projected at around 19% CAGR, which is significant. The hardest part is, of course, the power required to be driving all of this. That tends to be the long pole in the tent,” she said.