Bangalore Tech Symposium: AI & the Future of Working in Tech
We just wrapped the Bangalore Tech Symposium — one of the most grounded conversations on AI in tech we’ve hosted so far. Organised by The Builders Club in association with Dell Technologies and AMD, the day brought together the people leading the curve — CTOs, GCC leaders, founders, operators and investors — for a focused, no-fluff look at how AI is reshaping the way tech businesses operate, compete and grow.
As the industry moves past experimentation, the discussion centred on what it actually takes to build, operate and scale in an AI-first world — from infrastructure and engineering systems, to enterprise-scale deployment inside GCCs, to how capital is flowing across the AI ecosystem. The day was built for depth, not breadth: a keynote fireside, three practitioner panels, and a networking dinner to close. 100+ attendees, 15 speakers.
A glimpse of the day
What a room. Beyond the stage, the real energy was in the conversations between sessions — the debates, introductions and perspectives exchanged in real time. Here’s the highlight reel.
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The keynote fireside, with Dell
The day opened with a fireside featuring Madhumalar Anandan, Microsoft 365 & Workplace AI Leader at Dell Technologies, on “Rethinking Workplace Computing: What Modern Tech Teams Actually Need from Their Devices.” AI workloads aren’t what legacy infrastructure was built to handle — the conversation dug into the hidden performance ceilings created by legacy device setups, and what genuinely AI-ready infrastructure looks like for high-performance teams.
Tech Panel — Building an AI-First Workplace
The CTO perspective: rearchitecting infrastructure, overhauling engineering processes, and making the hard calls on where to invest and what to leave behind.
Abhishek Ranjan (Blue Machines AI & Apna Group), Debasis Bhattacharya (Databricks), Sivakumar Selva Ganapathy (Johnson Controls) and Suresh Kumar Khemka (Atlassian), moderated by Shamanth S N (Rakuten India | BCIC).
GCC Panel — The AI Productivity Multiplier
GCC leaders aren’t just adopting AI — they’re defining what enterprise-grade deployment looks like for the rest of the industry, setting requirements and making the talent and infrastructure calls.
Vishal Nagpal (Best Buy), Pradeep Rao (Kyndryl), Aneel Kumar Savalagi (Takeda) and Rohan Lobo (Deloitte), moderated by Sohail Khan (Founder, The Builders Club).
Investor Panel — Investing in the AI Era
A rare, unfiltered view of how investors are reading the landscape — what’s getting funded, and where durable value is actually being created.
Anant Vidur Puri (Bessemer Venture Partners), Shivam Rajvanshi (Together Fund), Sonal Saldanha (3one4 Capital) and Suryaprakash Konanuru (Ideaspring Capital), moderated by Shantanu Chaturvedi (Transition VC).
What the room actually took away
Across the fireside and the panels, a few themes kept surfacing — the kind of signal you only get when CTOs, GCC heads and investors are honest in the same room. AI is no longer a layer; it’s becoming the operating model. Infrastructure and data readiness are the real bottlenecks to scale. Productivity gains are real, but capturing them as advantage is still uneven. And the gap between companies moving fast and those waiting is widening rapidly.
Moments from the room
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Who was in the room
The Symposium was built for the leaders already in the arena — IT and technology leaders rebuilding from the inside, GCC and enterprise tech heads deploying at scale, founders and business heads across IT and SaaS, and investors looking for ground-level signal. That mix is exactly what The Builders Club is built around. Not just events — rooms for real conversations. More to come.
