Tech Mahindra has set up a lab in Bengaluru in association with US chipmaker Intel as part of its preparedness for 5G services expected to be rolled out by 2019, said a top executive of the IT firm.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) expects to finalise a road map for the services by June this year.

CP Gurnani, CEO and Managing Director of Tech Mahindra, said the company has already re-skilled about 30,000 of its employees in handling emerging technologies.

The remaining 75,000 employees will be re-skilled by the end of the current calendar year, he said.

“In our case, the key drivers (for future growth) are clearly 5G roll out if it happens in 2019. We will see better capex spending in telecom,” he said.

“We have set up a lab with Intel in Bengaluru. We have set up labs with other companies also. You don’t learn swimming by practicing on the beach. So we are working on software-defined networks.

“We are getting ready for the (5G) roll out,” Gurnani said on the sidelines of the just concluded World Congress of Information Technology 2018 here.

Re-skilling for emerging tech

According to him, the company employees are in the process of acquiring required skill sets and getting ready for pilot phases to be rolled out soon.

“A large delegation of Tech Mahindra is going to the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona (staring from February 26) and intense discussions have been planned around 5G roll out,” he said, without elaborating on the time-frame for pilot projects on the new mobile phone technology.

“It (re-skilling of employees) will remain a big focused area. I am already done with 30-35 per cent (of the employees), (but) there is a lot more to be done.

“Within this calendar year (2018), the remaining (70 per cent) will be done,” he added.

Declining to reveal specific recruitment plans, the TechM CEO said the IT industry may witness 4 per cent growth in hiring if the industry expands at 8 per cent per annum for the next two years.

“I am giving a back of the envelop calculation. I don’t think it (hiring) will become stagnant,” said Gurnani, whose company currently has 1.05 lakh employees.

Referring to the IT industry’s apex body Nasscom’s projections, he said 7 to 9 per cent expansion of the sector during the next fiscal will be a “very good growth”.