By - Divyanshi Sinha
India's IT giants face existential fork in April 2026: TCS/Infosys/Wipro/HCL/TechM net +17 hires in 9 months—a freeze—while Accenture bulks 13,500 and plans 20K freshers for AI/cloud roles, spotlighting two paths amid West Asia war volleys barely denting Q4. Salil Parekh preaches "AI-first specialists," domain experts over generalists as services PMI hits 14-month low 57.5 from energy client chills.
Mumbai's Koramangala coders upskill via FutureSkills PRIME (2M trained), Semiconductor Mission 2.0 fabs domestic chips for sovereign AI. Risks: geopolitics spike diesel 15%, but IT dodges via remote work. Optimism: $1T digital economy by 2028, NASSCOM eyes 1M AI jobs. Bandra startups pivot or perish—generalists obsolete. India's IT doesn't stagnate; it bifurcates—freeze or feast on AI's promise.
