GenAI is the new electricity, sustainability will follow: Nagarro CTO

What key enterprise technology trends do you see emerging in the next five years, and how is your company positioned to adapt to them?

From a digital engineering perspective, the field continues to evolve and deepen its impact within organisations year after year. Digital product engineering, digital transformation, and digital engineering as a whole are poised for ongoing growth. A key trend driving this growth is the increasing focus on the data being generated and how it can be leveraged to enhance product quality and improve the productivity of the people involved.

At the same time, there's a significant shift in the tools being used. These tools are becoming more intelligent, driven by advancements in artificial intelligence. For example, AI-powered assistants are increasingly supporting developers by boosting productivity, improving code quality, and even making the coding experience more enjoyable.

Overall, the major trends to watch include the continued push for digital transformation, a sharper emphasis on collecting and utilising relevant data, and the growing integration of AI into tools that help teams deliver better outcomes.

When discussing data, sustainability becomes crucial for enterprises. What’s your perspective on that?

The widespread adoption of digital technologies has brought its own sustainability challenges. These include the high energy consumption of digital systems and the environmental impact of managing outdated hardware. As digitisation grows, so do concerns about its environmental footprint.

At Nagarro, sustainability is a core passion. As you may have seen in our posts and on our dedicated sustainability page, we are actively working on several initiatives in this area. For example, we align closely with international sustainability standards, measures, and policies. Our commitment is reflected in our improving ratings with organisations like EcoVadis, S&P Global, and MSCI, highlighting how seriously we approach this issue.

But sustainability isn’t just about us; it’s a principle we share with our customers. To that end, we equip our engineers with the knowledge and tools needed to integrate sustainability into their work. We offer a dedicated sustainability training programme for our engineers, developed in collaboration with leading experts, including a US-based company called Terra.do. These programmes are delivered globally and empower our engineers—whom we refer to as "eco-digital engineers"—to design and implement solutions with sustainability at the forefront.

This emphasis ensures that every solution we create is not only innovative but also environmentally responsible.

GenAI is currently driving digital transformation across industries. How do you see it transforming businesses overall, and how is Nagarro leveraging LLMs and GenAI in enterprise applications?

GenAI is rapidly being adopted across industries, powered by tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, which build on foundational advancements in LLMs. These models rely on energy-intensive GPU infrastructure, but there’s a growing shift towards renewable energy-powered data centres to improve sustainability.

Accuracy needs for GenAI vary by application, influencing the choice between resource-intensive LLMs and more efficient smaller language models (SLMs). Hybrid approaches, combining LLMs for complex tasks and SLMs for simpler ones, optimise performance and energy use.

As chips improve and renewable energy adoption grows, the energy demands of LLMs will decrease. This, along with advanced solution design, paves the way for GenAI to become both highly effective and sustainable.

But when training and deploying LLMs, companies often face significant carbon footprints. What innovations or strategies is your company exploring to mitigate this?

As I mentioned earlier, our company is constantly upgrading its performance across various sustainability ratings. For example, our EcoVadis and MSCI ratings have shown significant improvement. We also prioritise educating our engineers to design more sustainable solutions. To support this, we’ve developed a structured training programme with multiple levels. Engineers who complete these levels earn the title of "eco-digital engineers," reflecting their ability to integrate sustainability as a core design element.

This focus on sustainability can be compared to the way security evolved as web applications became more prevalent. Initially, security wasn’t a major concern, but over time, it became a critical design aspect. Similarly, as data sharing advanced, data privacy became essential. Now, sustainability is following a similar trajectory, gaining attention and becoming a vital consideration in engineering and deployment designs.

When working with customers, we also help them monitor and optimise sustainability metrics through interactive dashboards. These tools provide insights into their operations, such as the carbon footprint of their servers. For instance, they can identify idle servers that unnecessarily contribute to emissions and switch them off to reduce their carbon footprint. This proactive approach helps our clients design and manage systems with sustainability at the forefront.

What are the main challenges enterprises face when integrating LLMs or GenAI into their workflows?

Adopting new technologies like GenAI and models such as LLMs or SLMs involves moving from initial hype through proof-of-concept (PoC) projects to full-scale production. Many enterprises have begun reaping benefits as these projects mature, but key challenges remain.

Trust is a major concern, particularly around data exposure when using these models. Enterprises must ensure sensitive customer data remains secure, working with AI providers and stakeholders to address grey areas before deploying solutions. This ties into the broader need for responsible AI practices, including ethical considerations.

Sustainability is another critical factor, with organisations evaluating the carbon footprint of AI systems. Partnering with hyperscalers helps enterprises make informed, environmentally conscious decisions.

In essence, successful adoption of GenAI hinges on addressing trust, ethics, and sustainability while ensuring meaningful business outcomes.

How do you see the role of GenAI evolving in enterprises, particularly in relation to sustainability?

When new technology emerges, it often introduces challenges and concerns that didn’t exist before, which need to be addressed. For instance, when electricity was first introduced, there was widespread fear of short circuits causing house fires. Over time, however, regulations improved, product quality increased, and safety measures became more robust.

Today, we have circuit breakers in our homes that automatically cut off power in the event of a short circuit, preventing damage. This progress has made us comfortable with installing and using electrical systems without fear.

Similarly, GenAI and AI, in general, can be seen as the "new electricity." We’re at an early stage of adoption. As time goes on, appropriate policies and frameworks will be developed to address current concerns. Efforts are already underway to establish these safeguards.

As the technology matures, fears will subside, and we’ll see a wealth of innovative solutions leveraging this "new electricity," creating powerful and beneficial tools for society.

I hope this answers your question!