Abhijit Dubey, President, CEO, and Chief AI Officer at NTT DATA, has rejected the assertion from some analysts within the industry that AI is an existential threat to IT services.
Dubey believes it provides an incredible opportunity for NTT DATA and other companies operating in the IT services space.
He made the remarks during his keynote address at the NTT DATA Horizons Innovation Summit 2026 in Milan.
Dubey highlighted the phenomenal economic opportunities pointing out that trillions are being invested into AI in an effort to reduce IT labour costs.
“The reason trillions of capital is being invested into AI is the fact that IT labour costs are between $30-40 trillion every year. If you can improve productivity by 15%, which is very, very doable, then you can create $5 trillion in economic value, which is the equivalent of the GDP of Japan,” said Dubey.
Dubey also reinforced how NTT DATA was pursuing its goals and mission statement as a company under the banner of ‘responsible innovation’.
“Our mantra for years was ‘Tech for Good’, but now it’s called responsible innovation, but it is essentially the same message. AI and responsible innovation go hand-in-hand at NTT DATA. We have principles that are unwavering and that guides our innovation to ensure that what we do benefits society and future generations to come,” said Dubey.
Dubey also touched on the fact that the vast majority of enterprises globally are not getting a ROI when it comes to AI.
A report from McKinsey unveiled some sobering statistics.
However, Dubey said that there are some companies that are doing things right when it comes to AI and are already generating value from those investments and are yielding positive business outcomes.
The CEO of NTT DATA stressed that focusing on 1 or 2 core industry domains was the key to success.
“It has become clearly evident from the recent McKinsey report that many enterprises worldwide are struggling to yield a ROI on AI. However, the reality is that there are some companies that are generating value from their AI investments because they are focusing on 1 or 2 core industry domains and not 400 AI use-cases,” said Dubey.
Anne-Sophie Lotgering, CEO of Europe at NTT DATA, highlighted the increasing demand for private and sovereign AI across Europe.
Last week, we featured an op-ed from Dario Perfettibile, General Manager, EMEA at Kiteworks – where he highlighted how US diplomats were being instructed to lobby foreign governments against data sovereignty and privacy laws.
During her presentation, Lotgering said that ongoing geopolitical tensions had led to an increasing demand for enterprises and government entities on sovereign AI.
Lotgering referenced findings that emerged from their NTT DATA 2026 Global AI Report, where it was clear that business leaders wanted to invest in private and controlled AI environments to reduce risks and dependencies.
“Sovereignty is becoming a board level strategic priority. Our Global AI Report showed that 59.4% of AI leaders flag sovereignty as a top governance concern. There is no doubt that the current geopolitical situation is only going to serve to increase demand. At the end of the day, sovereign AI enables an organisation, or a country to independently develop, deploy and govern AI across infrastructure, data, technology and jurisdiction, and is an area where we can help with our sovereign cloud infrastructure and our partnership with AWS European Sovereign Cloud,” said Lotgering.
