Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage here from Davos 2026. I'm Shireen Bhan. As we close out our special programming here from the World Economic Forum's annual summit, we continue to double down on one of the predominant themes and that is artificial intelligence and the role that India can play in that journey. Joining me now is a man who understands both AI and India, the global CTO for Ericsson. Eric, many thanks for joining us here on CNBC TV18 and appreciate your time. As I pointed out, AI continues to be one of the dominant themes here. CEOs are talking about how they intend to use it, what kind of investments they intend to make. At Ericsson, it's been a few years of using it. Embedded AI is how you've been planning your products and your business. Take me through what the experience has been like but more importantly what you see now in the future.
I think it's a good framing, Shireen, that AI is already powering 5G networks today. But I think back to the discussion here in Davos, it's been very much about the ROI of AI, it's very much about diffusion of AI, and I think those are hugely important because the most advanced companies now they get the return on the investments and we're starting to see more AI applications, agentic flows, permeating throughout enterprises. But I think the discussion that needs to be connected to that is how do you actually get AI to the end users or getting data from sensors. So advanced connectivity is really what will power the future of AI and that discussion is just starting right now. So to your point about AI in the network, we are already powering 5G with AI to create better user experience, lower energy consumption, but also to be able to create more services faster. So AI in terms of autonomous networks.
Autonomous 5G networks, that's actually already deployed in the most advanced networks today. So you know you said that ROI of course is the big question and that continues to be a question mark for many companies at this point in time, but is it working for you? Are you already starting to see returns?
We see that and I think we've been fortunate to start very early in our own journey. So AI in R&D is already paying off. It's changing the way that we develop systems. Of course developer experience, DX, is critically important for our many talented engineers, many of them actually in India as we talked about. But this is really a journey that we started many years ago and now over the last year or so we're starting to see significant productivity improvement which is great, but more importantly when you change the complete workflow, when you change the way you're working, not just coding, testing, everything, it really changes how fast we can come to market with the latest product. So yes, AI is already having an impact on us. And then of course in finance, in sales, in customer care, you see these kind of use cases really starting to take off.
You know, around AI, of course, the conversation has now moved towards agentic AI and what that could potentially mean. Many believe that that is a game changer for many sectors. I know you are a firm believer of that as well.
I am because I think that's when we can start to go from very simple tasks that need to be automated. That's of course the first step. And when you can start to connect it in workflows, agents talking to each other, creating bigger solutions, that's really where the big change comes. But I think it also has a big impact on the digital infrastructure itself. So Ericsson builds mobile network infrastructure around the world. 50% of the world traffic outside of China passes through networks that we deliver. So of course it matters a lot in terms of where that AI traffic will go. Will it only be downlink traffic from an AI agent down to a device or AI glasses, or will it perhaps be more in the other direction? You're sending from the sensors, you're sending from the AI glasses up to the cloud, and that changes traffic patterns. It changes how we need to dimension and build networks. So AI has a huge impact on networks and especially agentic AI because then you have chattiness between many agents. Think of a workflow that can consist of tens if not hundreds of different agents talking to each other. So it becomes more like a fabric, a mesh of communication. I call it the intelligent fabric because of course it needs to know about the traffic. Not all traffic is created equal.
But that is actually where we're going now with 5G today, standalone 5G, and then of course an upgrade with AI nativity going forward. You know, we're talking about 5G, but the move to 6G and India is at the forefront of attempting that transition. Before I talk to you about India, the move from 5G to 6G and what that's going to mean in an AI era.
Today, as I said, we're already building AI into networks, embedded AI, creating better user experience all the way up to customer care and so forth. And that means that AI powered 5G is really what will be the opportunity for our customers when it comes to the AI transition in society. So you don't need to wait for 6G. And I think here India has a fantastic starting point. One of the absolutely best and biggest networks is rolled out in India. So of course once you have that better network, better network for AI, you can start to create new services for society, AI based services, and of course you can create much better networks themselves. So I think the journey towards the future 6G really starts with 5G standalone today, AI powered 5G, to get all these benefits, and then you have a relatively smooth upgrade then to AI native 6G. So it really comes as a stepwise journey.
Well, let's talk about India. Ericsson has been a long committed believer in the India story and a partner with many telcos who are operating in India, the likes of Bharti and others. How has the journey been so far for you? But more importantly, as we see the pace of growth accelerate, what will it mean for India plans?
You're right. We've been supporting India for a very long time, more than 100 years. And this is for us the second biggest market in the world. And of course just being a part of building out 5G with record speed which happened a few years ago, that was a fantastic journey for us and of course our customers. So it's powering more or less all of India now with 5G. I think it's exciting to also look at how it's growing over the coming five years. So we are seeing that in perhaps less than 5 years there will be a billion 5G connections in India. So it's growing very fast and that would mean that some 79, 80% or so will be connected with 5G in the relatively near future. So of course it's a big upgrade of the networks, continues to be an upgrade because you need coverage everywhere, you need better capacity, the better uplink, all the things that I mentioned. So for us it's really important to be working in India, but it's also very much to work in the Indian ecosystem with our customers as you mentioned, the biggest customers in India and in the world. That gives us a lot of learnings, we can build better products, serve our customers even better, but it also allows us to connect to the booming ecosystem when it comes to new startups, all the way from universities actually, leveraging that better network, creating new AI applications, typically could be smart manufacturing, smart transportation, in retail. But it also moves the value and what we are doing in India up the stack because as I mentioned, you will need a better network for AI, but you also need to program the network to be able to actually get that better network. So network programmability, network APIs, how to create a software layer on top of the network that all enterprises can enjoy, that is things that we are really pioneering and driving in India. So working very close with the Indian ecosystem is key. Also working with the Indian government, I think that's hugely important moving towards 6G. I think Bharat 6G and the efforts from the government to pave the way to 6G, we're very much part of that together with our partners and customers. So I think India has set itself up for a very strong journey to 6G by having the best, strongest 5G network today, upgrading with AI to AI powered 5G, and then to 6G. I think that vision and that plan is really solid in India.
