There is enough demand for AI, and Infosys is harnessing it by helping clients build agents, streamline change management, and drive technology transformation, its MD and CEO Salil Parekh said.“The way Infosys is working on this, we’ve built AI services which do the work that we’ve all been discussing…building agents, looking at coding, making sure there’s transformation of technology, change management, and that work we shared last quarter is eight percent of our revenue, but growing at an incredible pace. Double-digit quarter-on-quarter. So that already tells us that there’s a huge demand, even if it’s small today in terms of relative size for Infosys, it’s growing at a fantastic pace,” Parekh said, speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.He was speaking in a panel consisting of other tech experts like Tillman Global Holdings CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, NTT Data CEO Abhijit Dubey, and Brookfield Asset Management CEO Connor Teskey.Huge demand, profitability in sight“I think we are barely scratching the surface on the demand side of the equation. So if you look at token consumption today, we’ve got 30 million software developers, and sort of a fraction of it is where it’s mostly concentrated, along with some research kind of work. We’ve got a billion knowledge workers. We’re barely scratching the surface of that,” according to Dubey.In fact, Teskey of Brookfield said that “the demand so overwhelms supply at this point that there is going to be a supply-demand imbalance through the end of this decade and probably far beyond that.”This is, in contrast, to the “somewhat detached” narrative that AI demand is fragile, and that the supply chain is inefficient, he added.A lot of experts have theorised that AI-driven optimism is actually a “bubble” leading to high costs and chip shortages amid a lack of profitability, but Dubey believes that this profitability is in sight.Story continues below this ad“We’re still in very early stages, but I think the recipe is starting to become a little bit clearer in terms of how you truly see it in your P&L. We used to joke that AI is everywhere, except in the P&L,” said Dubey.Teskey shared a similar view.“There is unequivocally an incredibly large opportunity where the value is already being delivered today, and then there is a far greater opportunity where the value proposition is going to continue to get unlocked going forward,” he said.This demand could come from enterprises, the nuclear sector, consumers, and various other avenues, the panel discussed.Energy, infra key bottlenecksWhile people are speaking on chip shortages, the infrastructure and energy facilities lagging behind this AI demand have emerged as the biggest bottleneck.Story continues below this ad“The biggest bottleneck ends up being the data centre capacity. And the long pole in the tent, of course, is energy. But beyond energy, it’s actually a system issue. Because as a data centre operator, you’ve got to bring energy locally, if it’s off the grid. You know, the grid capacity, as an example in the United States, has stayed flat for the last three decades. China has doubled every decade in the last three decades,” said Dubey.In this backdrop, energy sources like renewables, cells, batteries, and nuclear will continue to be in demand.“By 2030, our forecast suggests at least a third of the electricity capacity will have off-the-grid onsite generation,” said Teskey.Geopolitical environment spurring demandThis demand for AI and infrastructure building has spread across regions amid a challenging and increasingly fragmented geopolitical environment, and at a time when data is the most valuable currency.Story continues below this ad“Even get to the war problems, you have to handle a supply chain that was built over six, seven decades. Break it apart and say, I have chips that I can only use for Chinese hyperscalers. Chips I can only use for the other hyperscalers. Every piece of the supply chain is different,” said Ahuja of Tillman Global.Also Read | India will be leader in AI diffusion at scale, new jobs will come from small businesses: Nandan Nilekani“Data is now the world’s fastest growing commodity. It’s of strategic national importance. It needs to be stored, processed, and transported at a level never before contemplated. It is increasingly important to companies, but in particular governments, to have security over their own supply chain for managing and storing their data. This is a national security interest. Therefore, we are seeing demand environments in every region around the world. Every country wants a certain level of its own AI infrastructure,” he added.