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Ascendion has inaugurated its GenAI Studio in Chennai, bringing the city at the forefront of generative AI innovation for global clients. This new facility will leverage Chennai’s rich talent pool and favourable business environment to drive significant advancements in AI.
The Chennai hub is spearheaded by Prakash Balasubramanian, executive vice president of engineering management and head of India engineering operations.
In an interview with AIM, Balasubramanian elaborated on why Chennai was selected as the hub for Ascendion’s AI efforts. “We started with Chennai because we have extremely talented folks here, who possess deep engineering and mathematics knowledge.”
Additionally, key AI and data leaders within the company are already based in Chennai, making it a logical starting point. On a personal note, he added, “I’m from Chennai, and the CEO is from Chennai, so we thought we’d give something back to the city where we’ve all started.”
CEO Karthik Krishnamurthy said, “Our new AI studio in Chennai is filled with expert talent, hands-on technology, and inspiration, all designed to excite, provoke, and generate applied GenAI solutions that will drive business forward and positively impact lives all over the world.”
Balasubramanian said that the company plans to expand to more cities globally and is currently aiming for five more AI studios. The Chennai studio boasts a 3D printed LLM-powered robot, called Diva, for interaction on the front desk.
The Vision for India
The AI studio in Chennai is envisioned as the hub for Ascendion’s global AI innovations. Balasubramanian outlines the primary objectives for the studio. One of them is engineering platform development. The studio will be the birthplace for Ascendion’s engineering platform, AVA+, designed to simplify software engineering.
“All the AI capabilities we are building on this platform will originate from Chennai,” he noted. Critical AI programs will be managed and driven from Chennai. “We are already doing this, but we will continue to drive a lot of the critical programs around AI from here,” Balasubramanian stated.
A key component of Ascendion’s strategy is upskilling its workforce to adeptly handle generative AI.
“We want our engineers to be very good consumers of GenAI, leveraging it to enhance their day-to-day work. We also aim to transform many of our engineers into creators of GenAI, developing LLMs and solving complex business problems,” Balasubramanian explained.
The GenAI studio will also serve as a training ground for new talent. “We are hiring 300 freshers this year, with 150 to 160 of them being trained on AI in Chennai in the next couple of months.”
Along with all this, it will also act as a collaboration hub where clients can bring their problem statements, brainstorm solutions, and leave with a minimum viable product. “It will serve as a client Innovation Centre where we can model solutions and scale them subsequently.”
Michelangelo of AI
Central to Ascendion’s AI strategy is the AVA+ platform, particularly the Michelangelo studio, which dramatically shortens the time from concept to a functional software application. Balasubramanian describes Michelangelo’s capabilities: “In a matter of a couple of hours, you can have a fully functional application from the time you started with just an idea.”
The company has integrated it within their operations and is not serving it as products to its customers.
In a demo with AIM, Balasubramanian showed how Michelangelo allows engineers to upload simple sketches or wireframes and automatically generate functional code, significantly reducing the traditional iterative process that can take weeks. “We believe this can disrupt the way engineering happens, making the process faster, better, and more efficient,” he asserted.
When asked about competition, Balasubramanian emphasised the tangible impact Ascendion’s solutions have made. “We are driving productivity improvements of 30 to 40% on an average, and our clients are seeing significant business benefits,” he said.
Ascendion’s proactive approach to integrating AI into all aspects of software engineering sets it apart in a rapidly evolving market.
Ascendion is committed to staying ahead of the curve in AI innovation. “The field of AI is very hot, and we are going to see more and more innovation in the coming days. We are prepared to disrupt the traditional ways of working and lead the charge in AI-driven engineering,” Balasubramanian concludes.
Along similar lines, Accenture and Tech Mahindra also unveiled their Generative AI Studios last year to boost its employees’ generative AI confidence and upskill them.
