"Yes, I'll be the first to admit that in my journey of 19 years at Intel, there have been misses like smartphones," emphasizes Prakash Mallya, while discussing Intel's failures.
"With regards to smartphones, we did invest, we did have designs, but we realized it wouldn't be profitable to pursue them beyond a point," Mallya says. "So rather than focus on the Android phone market, we are focused on connectivity and transforming the network."
If you wondered why you don't have an Intel-powered smartphone in your hand right now, despite only ever using an Intel PC or laptop all your life, I hope you don't have to wonder anymore. It's the same reason Microsoft Windows couldn't extend its monopoly of the PC market over to smartphones. I feel it's because massively huge companies like Intel and Microsoft don't always move fast on an opportunity. Not for lack of trying, mind you -- we did see Intel Atom smartphones and Windows-powered mobiles for some time but it didn't work.?
Prakash Mallya // Intel
This only strengthens Intel's resolve to be a company that doesn't just react to evolving technology sectors, but play a fundamental role in ushering in new tech horizons that push the needle of possibilities forward. That's why Prakash Mallya believes Intel is currently "leading one of the biggest transformations in corporate history."
For a 50-year-old company that created the world's first commercial microprocessor that's easier said than done, but Prakash Mallya isn't just talking the talk. He's actually living and breathing Intel's transformation journey firsthand, tasked as a key leader of its India chapter. His title reads?Vice President and Managing Director, Sales & Marketing Group, Intel India, but what it doesn't convey is that he's an industry veteran and his 19 year association with Intel will give millennials some serious commitment goals.
Asked to describe his Intel journey, Mallya calls it "full of tremendous learning." Despite joining Intel's Mumbai office in 2000, Prakash spent most of his time outside the country -- looking after Intel's South-East Asia business from 2005 to 2017 -- an easy decision at the time, he says.
"My appetite for risk is very high, and I think in most situations where you expect the worst to happen, it almost never is as bad as you think," Prakash explains his thought process. "So most of the moves I've made in my career have been very good, and full of great learning." He contextualizes this with his shift to Singapore in 2005 to focus on regional roles, before moving to Malaysia as country manager. He later relocated to Singapore to run both Malaysia and Singapore at one stage, before expanding his responsibilities in the South East Asia market where he managed six countries. He then took on the challenge to transform Intel's datacenter business, before returning to India in 2017 in his current role.
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"I'm never the smartest person in the room, but I have the curiosity to observe and understand more," mentions Mallya. He believes in surrounding himself with smart people and smart teams, and coming back to India has been full of learning thanks to customers' unique tech adoption insights. Especially since "India is poised at a very interesting place in terms of technology, and what technology can do to unlock the nation's potential," says Mallya.
Talking about the last couple of years, Prakash Mallya remains bullish about the nation's journey. "If you talk about artificial intelligence, the quality of ecosystem that is getting built up by Indian startups is pretty significant. The infrastructure has gone up. Mobile data consumption in India is going through the roof. And all of this is accelerating since the last 18 months," explains Mallya, hinting at the several technology-led disruptions currently underway in the country.
"If you compare India from 19 years ago to India right now, things are very different, and in so many fundamental ways -- be it level of digitization, level of infrastructure, level of confidence. All of that comes out of being self-assured in where you're headed as a nation."?
He illustrates India's digital transformation journey with his own gadget shopping experience. "I recently bought a wireless router, and because of Aadhaar, I walked in and walked out of the store in less than 10 minutes," says Prakash Mallya, something that has never happened to him in India before. "That tells you the power of digitization and disruption happening in India right now."
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"I think Intel is also at a very different place," Mallya emphasizes. "So when I joined the company 19 years ago, we had just started investing in x86 servers and the server market, I remember that we were still a predominantly PC oriented company then. But fast forward to now, and the business is split between 50% PCs and 50% outside non-PCs, which includes datacenter, storage, IoT, AI, and more. So our aim in India is to contribute in the nation's digital transformation, and figuring out how can we really leverage our technology to accelerate the country's data-lead transformation even more."
There is no doubt about India's growing role in Intel's ambitions. The company turned 20 years old in India last year, investing over Rs 30,000 crore in that period. India is now the largest design footprint for Intel outside of US, which is a great testament to the top quality talent and capability of Intel India to build the best products and technologies for the rest of the world, according to Prakash Mallya.
Of course, India's currently being disrupted and transformed through technology, and the government is all for technological progress that benefits the citizens. But Prakash Mallya looks at intangible factors like affluence as a key indicator of India's steamrolling growth.
"When you look at India, its affluence is increasing dramatically," mentions Mallya, expressing wonder on how the number of people being added to India's middle class, every quarter, is more than the population of most countries.?"Combined with the fact that India's on track to become the youngest country in the world by 2020, all of these affluent young people will demand a better experience, especially in areas of gaming, high end entertainment, learning and education, and other AR or VR powered technology solutions."?
Make In India will continue to be a huge priority for the country, Prakash feels, and its success is crucial for India's tech-fuelled growth story. Because if India did well in the last two decades as an exporter of IT services in the world, it was largely due to non-existent local demand. But today, "we are quickly moving away from services-led innovation to product led innovation in India," and India's startups are increasingly building Software-As-A-Service for local users in India, disrupting every imaginable market along the way, concludes Prakash Mallya.?
Intel silicon wafer
But that doesn't mean India can rest on its laurels just yet. There's always scope for improvement. For instance, Make In India needs more work. "If you look at China, it has taken them three decades, in my opinion, to get to where they are today. Similarly for Taiwan, for design and manufacturing, it took them decades to get there. I'm not saying that India will get there in two or three decades as well. We can go faster, right? It could be fast track, if we pay attention to making it efficient, where India becomes the best place for tech manufacturing that caters to local demand and exports them for the world as well." That can really be a huge uplift for the nation, argues Prakash. But before we reach the promised land in manufacturing, there are some vectors on efficiency of manufacturing we need to pay attention to and work out.
However, skilled labour, especially in areas of emerging technology, continues to remain a challenge not only in India but around the world, according to Prakash Mallya. "When you look at new-age skills needed to compete in the data-centric technology journey, areas led by artificial intelligence for instance, there is a shortage of skilled labor. That's why Intel is investing in this area in a big way, where we have trained 1,50,000 research and academic students and industry professionals on AI tools and technologies over the last two years."?
Whether it's India or around the world, Mallya underlines the fact that Intel's growth isn't at the expense of the environment. He points to initiatives at Intel India's 44-acre campus where they saved enough electricity in 2018 to power 2000 homes for a year, or their 100% domestic water recycling on campus, and solid waste management to bioCNG project. There's also learnings and insights Intel imparts to its customers, mostly in the area of phasing out of older hardware, which can cause unnecessary energy drain and escalate total operating cost of a piece of hardware. Obviously, the company can do more in this area.
At a time when climate activism is on the rise and customers increasingly demanding technology solutions with minimal ecological impact, Mallya's fully aware that it is in Intel's own interest to show leadership in the increasingly important area of corporate sustainable growth -- right from sourcing of material, pioneering manufacturing practices, to efficient supply chain and responsible e-waste disposal.?
Just like India, Intel's busy transforming as a company as well. From its strong roots in silicon and PC-server chips, it's taking a few steps back to take stock, and put together the pieces of a more wider and enriching mosaic. This is how Prakash Mallya explains what's happening inside Intel right now, "What we're doing is reimagining the infrastructure that is needed for data centric transformation. And that's where we are investing, primarily in the datacenter to help customers move data faster, store more data, and process everything. That's our strategy."
And Intel's upcoming GPU announcements will play a big part in accelerating this business transformation even more, reveals Prakash Mallya. It's an important piece of the mosaic. "We are making investments in GPUs, and very soon you would see the first set of products come through. GPUs will be great for crunching highly parallel workloads, helping advance the state of AI pretty rapidly in the future."
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"But don't forget -- GPU is just one element," explains Mallya. "How GPU connects itself with other pieces of the puzzle -- stuff like storage, memory, fabric, security elements, and overall packaging -- will determine how customers ultimately leverage its core strengths. I'm very bullish on the path that Raja Koduri (Senior VP, Chief Architect, and General Manager of Architecture, Graphics, and Software) and Jim Keller (Senior VP in Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG) and General Manager of Silicon Engineering Group (SEG)) have embarked upon, and extremely confident that GPU as a product innovation piece will provide us and our customers decisive and transformative technology leadership in the coming generations."
Is this transformation coming at the cost of Intel's traditional strengths in the PC business? Not at all, says Mallya. "Our appetite for innovation has not abated in PCs. If you look at Project Athena, the recent 10nm Ice Lake processor announcements, investments in driving innovations in gaming, all of this and more is an indication that the PC continues to be a very significant play for us globally."
As we approach the end, our conversation veers towards Prakash's personal and professional journey, about virtues that have come to define his outlook towards life in a way. I realize by now that as a deeply thankful and contemplative man, Mallya isn't one to indulge in idle self-pontification; but self-reflection has its own merits, I argue, where others may benefit from his experience and views.
"I can only share with you my learnings, and if people want to look at it as advice or anything else, they're free to make their own judgement," Prakash begins. "Optimism is the key to innovation, and you can't achieve anything in technology if you aren't positive about its transformative power.?Optimism is very critical for us to really transform anything that we do."
"I believe that young people, especially when they are at the start of their career, you have to be open minded, inclusive and tolerate (and learn from) differences," Prakash advises, recollecting his own experience of working with a diverse group of men and women through different Intel markets. "Celebrating differences can make this country go much faster, far ahead and further than anyone else, and that single vector of inclusivity and tolerance can make the single most important impact in this nation."
"We need to be passionate about what we do,?and we should learn to take risks," Prakash emphasizes, pointing to his own journey through Intel as an example, how his passion and appetite for risk drove him to take on new challenges, because "more often than not, the situation in your life isn't actually as bad as you think it is. So if you are looking at taking risks in very significant ways, many times you overthink it and may miss out on opportunities. So take risks, because life is short."
Prakash Mallya // Intel
"Lastly, something I think about deeply is that your family has a very integral part in your success," emphasizes Prakash. "I grew up in Lucknow, my parents weren't well off. They still gave me the best education they could afford. And what can I say about my wife, she has tolerated me wonderfully so far, she's a true pillar of my life. Because if you think about it, relocating 10 homes in 19 years through four countries, how many people will do that for their spouse?"
"If you achieve any form of success in life, then you have to be grateful to everything and everybody in your family, mentors, coaches, life partners, colleagues, anyone at all who helped you along the way, because success can't be achieved singularly," Prakash contemplates. "And that sense of gratitude is always there in my mind, because I wouldn't have come this far just on my own."
If you grew up using an Intel computer in the 90s and 2000s, still use an Intel PC or laptop and think that's all they do as a company, you couldn't be more wrong. Prakash Mallya has his hands full defining the company's journey in India, help pioneer and implement the next set of transformative technology. And if this phase of Intel's journey seems devoid of sexy stickers or pompous slogans, I feel it's only fitting as they try to give the good old "Intel Inside" a whole new meaning.