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Infosys-Huawei aided Globe Telecom project wins TM award
MUMBAI: Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services, has announced that it has been awarded in the ‘Best in Show’ category by TM Forum Live! Asia”.
TM Forum is a leading global industry association for digital business. The award was given for the ‘Cognitive Digital Agent’ – a project championed by Globe Telecom, Philippines along with Infosys, Amdocs and Huawei.
The project demonstrated the feasibility of using cognitive computing technologies aligned to telecom business processes to enhance customer experience in a more intuitive and natural fashion. To address changing consumer needs and demands in today’s digital economy, Infosys, along with Huawei and Amdocs, established the Cognitive Digital Agent – a five month project, led by Globe Telecom. This was aimed at creating the next-generation of customer care services, leveraging artificial intelligence technologies.
The core solution is driven by Infosys’ expertise in natural language processing, machine learning and cognitive computing. The Cognitive Digital Agent has the capability to address complex queries and answer questions through omni-channel access including interactive voice responses (IVR), portals and wearables.
The Cognitive Digital Agent creates a difference in situations where, if a call-center is contacted, the responses are generated using natural language processing – making them more consumer friendly, or on social media platforms and in smart watches where the machine agent responds to queries 24×7. TM Forum recognized the project for some of these exceptional demonstrations of business outcomes across channels, and the inventive use of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Infosys president and global head of energy, utilities, telecommunications and services Rajesh Krishnamurthy said, “Our goal has been to explore the use of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to create the next generation of customer care services, which, in turn, enabled us to create this compelling project that can significantly improve customer satisfaction. This award is testimony to the company’s AI capabilities and demonstrates our thought leadership in the telecom industry.”
Globe Telecom chief information officer Pebbles Sy-Manalang said, “Globe is at the forefront of transforming the telecoms industry in the Philippines by being a Digital Service Provider, well-equipped to serve the needs of Filipinos in living out their digital lifestyle. Once again we are changing the game by adopting Artificial Intelligence concepts and technologies that would give more than 68 million customers of Globe improved service while being cost-efficient. When we decided to demonstrate the potential and applicability of Cognitive Digital Agent through TM Forum’s Catalyst program, we partnered with Infosys because of its leadership position in Telco industry and the richness of Infosys’ Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning platform. I am happy to see that our partner ecosystem with Infosys, Amdocs and Huawei were able to demonstrate this potential value to our industry and what it can do for our customers which has been appreciated by TMF”
TM Forum VP of services & catalysts Rebecca Sendel said, “This award-winning project captured the spirit of the Catalyst program by rapidly developing a solution through collaboration and teamwork, delivering a quantifiable business outcome in the form of significant cost reduction (between 10 and 40 percent). These results exemplify the R&D multiplication effect of the Catalyst program, which is a proven collaboration platform for designing, building and testing solutions much faster and with lower risk and cost than any individual company could hope to accomplish.”
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Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
