Data security and compliance are non-negotiable in any cloud transformation journey: Sonia Ahluwalia, Kyndryl India – CRN

Sonia Ahluwalia

As enterprises race to modernise their data and embrace cloud-first strategies, the role of trusted partners becomes critical. In this conversation with CRN India, Sonia Ahluwalia, Vice President – Cloud Practice, Kyndryl India, shares how Kyndryl is helping organisations migrate from legacy systems to modern, cloud-native platforms while ensuring scalability, security, and compliance. She discusses the company’s approach to embedding generative AI into enterprise workflows, strengthening its presence in the Indian market, and leveraging strategic partnerships with hyperscalers and technology leaders like SAP and NVIDIA to deliver differentiated solutions for digital transformation.

Data modernisation is a key enterprise priority today. How is Kyndryl supporting clients in migrating from legacy systems to modern, cloud-native infrastructure while ensuring both scalability and security throughout the transition?

Enterprises today operate in a data-intensive environment that demands modern infrastructure, built for speed, intelligence, and alignment with business outcomes. Data modernisation is essential to this shift. It enables real-time processing, improves data integrity, and accelerates decision-making. When executed with purpose, it becomes a catalyst for innovation and long-term growth.

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At Kyndryl, we take an outcome-driven approach to modernisation. We begin with a comprehensive assessment of the client’s data landscape and use those insights to design tailored roadmaps that reflect each enterprise’s unique objectives and operational context.

We further focus on building cloud-native architectures that are scalable, secure, and resilient. These platforms operate seamlessly across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Our teams bring in automation, orchestration, and proprietary accelerators to ensure migrations are efficient and disruption-free. Governance and security are simultaneously embedded throughout the process to protect critical assets and ensure compliance.

Modernisation at Kyndryl is built on core principles like scalability, performance, and security, enabling enterprises to build modern data platforms that meet current demands and scale confidently for the future. With the right foundation in place, data becomes more than a resource. It becomes a strategic driver of agility, innovation, and transformation.

GenAI is reshaping how businesses operate, from content creation to faster decision-making. How is Kyndryl embedding GenAI into its service offerings, and what are some of the most impactful use cases you have seen among enterprise clients?

The rise of generative AI has transformed industries by enhancing automation, streamlining processes, and fostering innovation. According to a recent NASSCOM report, around 27% of companies already have AI agents in production, while another 31% are running pilots.

In collaboration with NVIDIA, we bring their generative AI stack into enterprise environments, enabling secure and scalable deployment of use cases such as summarisation, ticket resolution, retrieval-augmented generation, and real-time analytics. These capabilities are delivered through solutions orchestrated by Kyndryl Bridge and Kyndryl Consult, ensuring enterprise-grade governance, control, and performance across hybrid cloud operations.

We are also working closely with Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud to expand these capabilities and address diverse enterprise needs. With Microsoft, we leverage our growing patent portfolio in data and AI, and our access to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Fabric, to rapidly design, develop and drive new generative AI innovations and solutions across their enterprises. We are working with AWS to build an Innovation Factory, that combined with our data-driven capabilities enable customers to jump-start their cloud modernisation journey and accelerate their business transformation. Our collaboration with Google Cloud leverages Gemini, Google’s advanced LLM to support data modernisation initiatives and develop and deploy generative AI solutions for customers.

India is emerging as a hub for cloud transformation across industries. How is Kyndryl strengthening its presence and offerings in the Indian market to support this demand?

Cloud has become the foundation of digital transformation in India, driving agility, resilience, and continuous innovation across sectors. Kyndryl is expanding its capabilities in the market to support this momentum. This includes strengthening our cloud delivery centres and expanding local expertise across hyperscaler platforms.

Additionally, our collaborations with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft allow us to design and execute hybrid and multi-cloud strategies tailored to Indian enterprises. We are supporting large-scale programs across sectors such as BFSI, telecom, and manufacturing by modernising legacy infrastructure, embedding cloud-native services, and enabling observability and governance through Kyndryl Bridge.

India plays a pivotal role in our global cloud strategy, where we are co-creating scalable, future-ready solutions with some of the country’s most forward-looking enterprises.

Kyndryl has built strategic alliances with technology leaders like SAP and NVIDIA. How are these partnerships enabling you to deliver differentiated solutions to enterprises, particularly in areas like cloud transformation, AI, and advanced analytics?

Strategic partnerships are central to how we co-innovate and deliver differentiated outcomes for our clients. We collaborate closely with a broad ecosystem of technology leaders to co-create solutions that are rooted in real business needs.

Our collaboration with SAP helps clients advance their journey to RISE with SAP. We modernise infrastructure, streamline cloud operations, and integrate SAP workloads into larger transformation programs. These efforts are supported by SAP-certified teams with deep implementation and migration expertise.

To layer intelligence into modernisation, our alliance with NVIDIA brings advanced AI and analytics capabilities into enterprise environments. Together, we are enabling use cases such as intelligent forecasting, AI-powered defect detection, and real-time supply chain optimisation.

These partnerships highlight how the combination of leading-edge technology and Kyndryl’s service expertise helps clients turn innovation into operational impact and achieve measurable performance gains.

How is Kyndryl strengthening its partner ecosystem to better support cloud transformation journeys in India, especially through collaborations with hyperscalers and local ISVs?

Enterprises in India are accelerating their cloud journeys, demanding solutions that combine hyperscaler innovation with deep enterprise expertise. At Kyndryl, we are strengthening our partner ecosystem to meet this demand by deepening strategic collaborations with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.

These alliances enable us to co-create solutions that integrate seamlessly across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Through offerings like Kyndryl Managed Cloud Networking with Hyperscaler Services, we help enterprises modernise infrastructure, enhance network resilience, and improve operational efficiency.

We are also investing in collaborative skilling initiatives, including cloud certifications and training programs with our hyperscaler partners, designed to empower both Kyndryl teams and our extended ecosystem.

Our approach focuses on long-term collaboration that delivers measurable business outcomes. By combining engineering depth, partner innovation, and local delivery capabilities, we are helping enterprises unlock faster time to value, stronger compliance, and scalable, future-ready digital transformation.

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