Tech Mahindra’s President on the UK-India Digital Corridor

The bilateral trade landscape is poised for structural change when the new UK-India Free Trade Agreement, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), officially enters into force next week on 15 July. 

While mainstream commentary heavily emphasises tariff reductions on traditional physical commodities, the deeper economic potential rests in the formalisation of a sophisticated cross-border services framework.

Harshul Asnani, President and Head of Europe Business at Tech Mahindra, outlines the strategic potential of the new agreement.

“CETA’s biggest opportunity is not confined to goods,” he begins. 

“It can create a stronger digital corridor between two complementary economies: the UK, with its strengths in AI research, financial services, regulation, cybersecurity, healthcare innovation and advanced technologies; and India, with its engineering depth, platform capability and delivery scale.”

For Tech Mahindra, this corridor is not theoretical.

“We are already deeply embedded in the UK’s digital fabric, supporting telecom networks, NHS trusts, utilities, public services, financial services and customer experience platforms at a national scale.,” Harshul says.

“That gives us a practical view of where UK–India collaboration can deliver immediate outcomes: solutions can be developed with UK clients, universities and institutions, industrialised through India’s technology ecosystem and scaled globally from both markets.”

Defining the new digital corridor between complementary economies

Harshul notes that integrating specific regional capabilities provides a clear roadmap for international enterprise deployment across corporate networks.

“The most effective model is to combine UK-origin innovation with India’s ability to engineer and scale technology,” he says.

“Tech Mahindra’s own Indus LLM journey is a useful example of this innovation-at-scale model. Indus was built as a foundational language model for Hindi and 37 regional dialects, with the ambition of making AI accessible to hundreds of millions of people who are often left outside global technology systems. 

“The lesson is clear: AI must be engineered for affordability, trust, local context and scale. That same approach can be applied in the UK–India corridor with UK research defining the frontier, Indian engineering making it reliable and scalable, and enterprise clients turning it into measurable value.”

Blending British innovation with Indian engineering scale

The mechanism for transforming academic research into marketable enterprise products relies on established delivery pipelines that bridge European design with Asian industrial capacity.

“Tech Mahindra is deeply embedded in the UK,” Harshul explains. 

“We manage significant parts of the UK’s digital network infrastructure, support NHS electronic patient record environments, service millions of utility customers, enable large-scale public transactions such as vehicle excise duty direct debits, support customer experience for tens of millions of mobile subscribers, and help manage data products for the UK’s premier stock exchange.”

These critical operational workflows are managed directly through specialised divisions, such as The HCI Group, a Tech Mahindra company that focuses entirely on cloud data migration and system optimisation for NHS trusts. 

Simultaneously, the organisation provides core messaging infrastructure and digital twin architecture for more than 40 communications service providers across the UK telecom sector. 

“CETA adds momentum to work already underway,” Harshul says. “Our focus is on accelerating programmes in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, digital engineering and enterprise transformation, while deepening co-innovation with clients, universities and technology ecosystems. 

“Partnerships with universities and work with the government are important parts of this strategy, especially in AI, quantum and future skills. The aim is to move faster from research to prototype, from prototype to enterprise platform, and from platform to scaled UK and global impact.”

Improving talent mobility and cross-border delivery infrastructure

Harshul emphasises that the long-term operational success of these frameworks relies heavily on seamless international human resource capabilities.

“For technology-led delivery, the impact is practical,” he says. “Large transformation programmes depend on placing the right specialist in the right client environment at the right time, while keeping global delivery teams connected. 

“CETA’s mobility provisions and the Double Contribution Convention can improve confidence around cross-border deployment and reduce double social security costs for temporary assignments.”

For UK clients, that can mean faster access to scarce skills in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, digital engineering and managed services. 

“We recently entered a multi-year, large transformation engagement with a leading UK telecom player that helps create much-needed local talent,” Harshul adds. “The next priority is implementation: visa processing, sponsorship and compliance at scale must become simpler and faster if businesses are to capture the agreement’s full value.”

Identifying the fastest growing emerging technology sectors

Specific technology areas are positioned to expand rapidly under the provisions of the new trade framework, according to Harshul. 

“Enterprise AI will lead, but the opportunity is broader,” he continues. “The fastest growth will come where the UK’s sector depth meets India’s engineering scale.

“The UK is already a proving ground for Tech Mahindra in many sectors, from telecommunications and utilities to healthcare, financial services and public infrastructure. 

“Our partnerships with universities and research bodies further strengthen the research-to-impact pathway, bringing academic depth in AI, quantum and healthcare together with Tech Mahindra’s enterprise engineering and delivery capability. 

“The strongest growth will be in regulated, technology-heavy sectors where trust, scale and execution all matter.”

Shortening the journey from laboratory to market

The alignment of intellectual property frameworks and research partnerships allows institutional insights to scale across diverse geographic markets.

CETA can shorten the journey from lab to market. 

“UK-born AI research can be developed in a trusted research and regulatory environment, validated with UK clients and sector experts, and then scaled through India’s engineering depth, data capability, and global delivery model,” Harshul explains. “This is precisely the model we are building through our academic and innovation partnerships.”

With University College London, Tech Mahindra is advancing joint research and solution development in generative AI, quantum computing, world models, domain-specific small language models, quantum machine learning, quantum security and industry-specific AI use cases.

“Alongside this, our engagement with The Open University reinforces the skills, research and applied learning needed to make emerging technologies deployable at scale,” Harshul adds.

“The Indus storyline shows what this can mean in practice: innovation built for local context, engineered at scale in India, and then adapted for wider global application. 

“That is how the corridor can move beyond policy intent and become a practical engine for productivity, jobs, skills and global competitiveness.”

Preparing commercial enterprise operations for economic value creation

Harshul advises that corporate leadership must take immediate decisive steps to capitalise fully on these imminent structural shifts.

“Enterprise leaders should understand CETA in business terms, not just as a policy agreement,” he says.

“Its value lies in its ability to improve market access, talent mobility, co-innovation and technology delivery between the UK and India. 

“The immediate action is to identify where it can create measurable economic value in areas such as enterprise AI, cloud modernisation, cybersecurity, digital customer experience or public sector transformation, and back those priorities with executive sponsorship, skills planning, and delivery discipline. 

“The more clearly leaders understand what CETA enables, the more confident they will be in investing, innovating and scaling. 

“That confidence will determine whether the agreement becomes a driver of productivity, jobs, technology modernisation and long-term growth across both economies.”