India’s digital economy to reach $1.2 tn by 2030 led by AI depth

New Delhi: India’s digital economy is projected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2029–30 as depth of AI capabilities will shape the next phase of growth, a report said on Friday.

The report from Team Lease Digital said that India’s AI market could touch $17 billion by 2027, with AI talent expected to double to nearly 1.25 million professionals, accounting for about 16 per cent of global AI talent.

This growth is being driven by enterprise AI spending, national digital rails, and a strong STEM pipeline, it said, adding that high‑value AI roles are expanding fast while demand for legacy roles plateaus.

The firm identified six enterprise‑grade AI skills emerging as foundational skills in 2026 such as Simulation Governance that can fetch up to Rs 26–35 LPA, Agent Design with Rs 25–32 LPA salary expectation, AI Orchestration (Rs 24–30 LPA), Prompt Engineering (Rs 22–28 LPA), LLM Safety and Tuning (Rs 20–26 LPA) and AI Compliance and Risk Operations (Rs 18–24 LPA).

Globally, up to 40 per cent of roles are expected to be impacted by AI, especially sectors such as IT services, healthcare, BFSI, and customer experience.

The report emphasised that organisations are reframing AI capability building as an enterprise‑wide priority, extending beyond data science to leadership, operations, risk and compliance, and prioritising broad‑based upskilling and hybrid human–AI workflows.

The strongest demand is for enterprise-grade AI skills that enable governance, trust, orchestration, and scalability, rather than for generic AI roles, it said.

Demand for these skills is concentrated in hubs including Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, driven by global capability centres, AI‑first startups and large enterprises across BFSI, healthcare and manufacturing.

The importance of mid-level professionals is growing as they can bridge applied AI with governance, orchestration, and real-world business needs, the report noted.

IANS