I decided to use an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software for a promo-video for my new book. Here's' the result

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and tools have been advancing at a fast pace. Many new tools continue to evolve and they are increasingly targeted at improving productivity of end consumers. 

After my book - Diary of a Successful Loser - was published last month, I had been reaching out to reviewers and bloggers. Along the way, I decided to explore the use of of Text-to-Video AI software to generate a promotional video for the book. 

Here is one version of a resulting video : What do you think?

While the resulting video is not bad, it is not as slick as one from a creative team or professional videographers. On the flip side, it is much better if not similar to what I would have got by paying a gig worker on Fivrr or Upwork 

After researching for a bit, I decided to use the freeware version Steve AI,  an online Video making software that creates Videos and animations in seconds. The UI is intuitive and easy to use after a quick signup. 

The challenge with Text-to-AI software is the human element and creativity - the creator (you and I) need a robust yet simple script with the right keywords that we can feed into the AI software. One can choose from a variety of templates, video and voice formats. After that, it is a matter of playing around with different formats, voiceovers and narratives. 

Bottomline: Image synthesis has great implications on creative arts and creation of visual art similar to what smartphones did to still camera. I came away impressed with the ease-of-use of such Ai software, and how they can be a powerful aid to less-creative people. With software like With steve AI’s video maker one can quickly create Facebook ads, video slideshows, newsfeed videos, stories, and cover videos. 

There are a number of 'Text to Video' AI software with varying levels of usability including 

• OpenAI's DALL-e AI - Open AI announced that it removed the waitlist for its DALL-E AI image generator service. More than 1.5M users are now actively creating over 2M images a day with DALL·E—from artists and creative directors to authors and architects—with over 100K users sharing their creations and feedback in our Discord community.
• Make-A-Video - Meta's Make-A-Video is an AI-powered video generator that can create novel video content from text or image prompts, similar to existing image synthesis tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. Make-A-Video research builds on the recent progress made in text-to-image generation technology built to enable text-to-video generation. The system uses images with descriptions to learn what the world looks like and how it is often described. Link to Meta's research paper 
• Stable Diffusion - A newly released open source image synthesis model called Stable Diffusion allows anyone with a PC and a decent GPU to conjure up almost any visual reality they can imagine. It can imitate virtually any visual style, and if you feed it a descriptive phrase, the results appear on your screen like magic.
• Imagen Video - Google’s newest AI generator  that creates HD video from text prompts. Google's engineers claim it is a text-conditional video generation system based on a cascade of video diffusion models. Given a text prompt, Imagen Video generates high definition videos using a base video generation model and a sequence of interleaved spatial and temporal video super-resolution models. According to Google's research paper, Imagen Video includes several notable stylistic abilities, such as generating videos based on the work of famous painters (the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, for example), generating 3D rotating objects while preserving object structure, and rendering text in a variety of animation styles. Google is hopeful that general-purpose video synthesis models can "significantly decrease the difficulty of high-quality content generation."

What do Parag Agrawal, Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai have in common? They were Enterprise Architects before they became CEOs

  The announcement about Indian born tech executive Parag Agrawal taking charge as the CEO of Twitter generated a considerable buzz, with the media and digerati examining various aspects of his background. Agrawal’s Indian heritage got considerable media attention, and so did his stellar academic pedigree.

Agrawal joins the list of Indian-born CEOs at global tech giants like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai whose ascent to the top is in large part attributable to their experience gained in architecting their enterprise’s transformation. In a sense they were Enterprise Architects with a strong business acumen who took on larger business leadership roles.

I’ve been practicing the art and craft of Enterprise Architecture (EA) for over a decade and see a distinct pattern at these tech companies that have nurtured tech talent into executive roles. EA is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of an organization. A well-defined EA blueprint should determine how an organization can effectively achieve its current and future objectives aligned with its corporate strategy.

Case in point: Architecting the enterprise strategy

Sundar Pichai joined Google in 2004, where he led the product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google’s client software products, including Google Chrome and Chrome OS and Google Drive. As Google’s Product Chief, he went on to oversee the development of other applications such as Gmail and Google Maps. After leading a series of highly visible transformations, Pichai was selected to become the CEO of Google, and its parent company Alphabet.

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella rose to the top after he successfully pivoted the company to the cloud era. Nadella is credited with bringing Microsoft’s database, Windows Server and developer tools to its Azure cloud, which has become the mainstay for public cloud adoption at global companies. Under Nadella, the revenue from Cloud Services grew from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011 to over $20.3 billion before he was elevated to be the CEO of the Redmond tech giant. The transformation and the business insights Nadella gained help Microsoft stay relevant as the world was moving toward the cloud.

A similar pattern can be observed at Twitter where Parag Agrawal is credited with leveraging is his strengths in data and analytics to influence engineers. During the 10-year stint at the social media giant, Agrawal built strong relationships across the organization and lead the re-architecture of the technical infrastructure that had been cobbled together to keep pace with Twitter’s stratospheric growth. His background in transforming the core architecture, coupled with relationships built across business positioned Agrawal to take on the top-job after the founder-CEO Jack Dorsey called it quits.

Distinct pattern

The pattern here seems distinct at tech companies where product-engineering and fast paced solution development drives the business. The business is closely interwoven with software development, and those with an ability to comprehend the complexity while also scanning the external landscape seem to excel.

In the online forums and Q&A sites where I am active, technologists muse about the career path towards Enterprise Architecture and beyond. While many techies and EAs spend their careers shaping strategies for business units, a few in technology companies are taking on broader roles shaping the course of their enterprise.

Originally published in  Express Computers 

Enterprise Architecture Roadmaps: reconciling across enterprise domains

I was at an industry forum where the discussions focused on strategy realization and roadmaps and some of the challenges with digital strategy execution. While discussing the challenges, many were in agreement that Business leaders are generally well versed in capabilities of IT, and the promise of digital tools and techniques.

Strategy realization involves executing on pre-defined roadmaps, and aligning business processes with appropriate technologies and platforms. In an earlier blog post, I described the process of reconciling Architecture Roadmaps across an organization. (link). This involves bringing together views from across functional and regional domains that coexist along with Business, Information, Data, Applications and Technology (BIDAT) areas. In addition to BIDAT, Architects also need to align across IT Services and digital backbone domains, each with distinct strategic drivers, business sponsorship and execution strategies.  A brief description of each of these along with some of the implications on EA roadmaps follow.

Enterprise-IT - services for internal consumption

Many large enterprises have moved towards a shared services model to centrally support systems and processes for business units and functions that may be globally distributed. IT, along with selected functions like facilities management, HR, finance and production may be managed within the shared services organization.

The enterprise-IT in a shared service will be designed to support internal operations in organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of employees. . These employees will need consistent processes and systems to support business operations, sales, support clients, manufacture and distribute goods in regions across the globe.

The enterprise-IT systems and processes must be continually supported, enhanced and upgraded. A large ecosystem of Enterprise IT application vendors with a variety of tools and technologies offer services for business verticals.

Implication: Senior executives closely watch the SLAs, metrics and cost of operations of enterprise-IT platforms and processes. The costs of operations can influence the organization’s bottomline, and so can productivity gains from transforming some of the processes and systems.

Digital Backbone

In many organizations, the growth engine is driven by distinct capabilities or intellectual property aligned with its core competency. In some organizations, the digital backbone may be called the “engineering” or “technology” capability. At a manufacturing company, the digital backbone will include R&D behind design of products and services. For a media company, it will be the newsroom operations supporting reporters and journalists. At a petrochemical company, the digital backbone will include innovation that drives its geo-information, GIS and drilling capabilities.

Systems and processes to manage core competency have evolved with emerging digital technologies and tools; and these are also likely to be most impacted by digital disruptors in the marketplace.

The past decade has seen entire industry segments and companies disrupted by digital innovators. Ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft have disrupted taxi services and public transit systems around the world. A decade ago, low cost online-only brokers disrupted full-service brokerages. Similarly, advances in electric vehicle technologies are being watched by the entire transport segment dependent on internal combustion engines - from automobile companies to oil drillers.

Implication: Technologies that enable the digital backbone are generally customized to the organization’s business processes and can be the engine for growth. Transformation of an organization’s digital backbone can impact the top-line, improve market share and sales, and transform its business model.

Architecting in the Enterprise: Impact on roadmaps

In most of the large enterprises I have worked with, there is a line in the sand when it comes to managing Enterprise-IT services and the organization's Digital Backbone. The platforms and systems are managed and operated independently, but there is value in working across the silos.

Many of the tools, technologies and services are interchangeable across these business units. For instance, a cloud hosting strategy may be applicable across these BU’s. Similarly, the organization will have a better negotiating leverage by consolidating licenses for infrastructure, network, databases and other technology services. Knowledge of Design and development skills may also be interchangeable across the organizations.

The organization’s culture may dictate the level of collaboration across enterprise-IT services and the organization's Digital Backbone.  An effective way to bridge the divide without being constrained by the culture is for technology leaders to continually reconcile Architecture Roadmaps as described in an earlier post. The reviews and reconciliation should be consultative, although some aspects - like external vendor inputs or Technology Debt (link) - may have to be directive. 

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Reposted from my LinkedIn Pulse

EA Q&A : Who are the potential stakeholders in an Enterprise Architecture program?

Here are a couple of recent questions that came to me from an online forum -

Question 1> Who are the potential stakeholders in an Enterprise Architecture program? 

 My response follows

The potential stakeholders in an Enterprise Architecture (EA) program may include:

• The Sponsor of EA program - The business, functional or technology sponsor of the EA program will be a key stakeholder
• The Sponsor’s direct reports - Those people will generally be engaged directly or indirectly in EA reviews
• The Sponsor’s reporting managers/executives - The sponsor will engage his/her reporting executives in the EA program
• IS and Technology stakeholders - The CIO/CTO may engage key people from their team for the EA program
• Functional stakeholders - The term ‘functional’ or ‘Business’ is generally broad and may include operational leadership and functional leaders who drive strategic initiatives across the organization
• Functional and operational team members - Do not underestimate the tacit knowledge that can exist in pockets across the enterprise. EA’s may have to engage with a wide spectrum of subject matter experts (SMEs) from across the organization

This is not an inclusive list, but just intended to guide you to explore the list of stakeholders.

After you identify your stakeholders, you will need a Responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) to ensure you engage and communicate with stakeholders.

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Question 2> What kind of personal/technical skills are required for an information architect (IA)? I major in information science and planning classes for next semester.

 My response follows

There are many ways of looking at Information Architecture (IA).

• In many organizations, Information gets granular when you engage with specific business, functional or technology Domains. Each will have a specific vocabulary, taxonomy and other business dimensions that you will have to gain expertise in. For example, an IA for a Finance domain may be different from that in Legal or Commercial areas.
• The TOGAF Standard, Phase C: Information Systems Architectures - Under IS Architecture, TOGAF takes into account Data and Application Architecture.

As you plan to major in information science, you could broaden your knowledge by taking some courses in functional domain areas.

Enterprise Architecture career Q&A : What skills to learn?

I came across an interesting question

"How do I change my career from a software developer to an enterprise architect. What skills I should learn?"

My response follows:

This is an interesting question though a lot will depend on your interests and background.
A “software developer” is a very broad term and can range from a core Java/Web developer to include folks configuring and customizing COTS products like SFDC or Oracle Fusion.
There is no indication of the business domain or industry you come from so I will assume you have a basic degree in IS or IT and have a few years of software development experience as a Java or .NET developer.
If you have identified an opening within the EA group in your organization, you will have to evaluate an your understanding of basic EA concepts; for example TOGAF’s ADM (link)


As a software developer you may be aware of some aspects of Information Systems and Technology Architecture, primarily by developing and deploying code to meet business requirements. As an Enterprise Architect, you will have to broaden your horizon to other BDAT dimensions too. Some of it can be done by attending training sessions on EA topics. You should also seek mentoring from EA’s in your organizations or your network.

Note: This is a rather short answer to a question that requires a lot more context about your background and long term goals. My response to similar questions on my blog - How important is it for an Enterprise Architect to have business domain knowledge?

Enterprise Architecture 101: Keep your Architecture Repositories – KISS-S

Viewpoints on Architecture repositories are topics of perennial discussion in digital forums and communities (eg link). Such discussions are the tip of the iceberg, bubbling up some of the frustration over time and energies that Architecture and Design teams spend on evaluating and managing Architecture Repositories. The focus of discussions range from What information to capture and document, to How-to manage the repositories, and includes debates on tools, technologies and platforms to use.

Architecture frameworks like TOGAF have captured the first part of the question well, explaining the need for repositories to operate mature Architecture Capabilities at large enterprises. TOGAF references (link) describe

“An Architecture Repository that allows an enterprise to distinguish between different types of architectural assets that exist at different levels of abstraction in the organization. This Architecture Repository is one part of the wider Enterprise Repository, which provides the capability to link architectural assets to components of the Detailed Design, Deployment, and Service Management Repositories.”

Why don’t organizations just adapt Frameworks like TOGAF that are obviously well documented? Just a couple of reasons why:

• While the documentation in TOGAF is rather extensive, it is also rather generic, and needs to be tailored to meet specific requirements of your organization. Like a Swiss-Army-knife, not all aspects of architectural information may be required or applicable for all organizations. 
• Architecture documentation and processes don’t operate in isolation. They need to exist seamlessly with your enterprise's change management and governance processes. 

In an earlier write-up (link), I highlighted my experiences in establishing and running an Architecture Review Board (ARB). To succeed, the architecture governance had to be embedded with the existing processes, and ways of working.

The same holds true for Architecture Repositories too. Architecture and design teams in large organizations spend a lot of time and energy documenting the current and future state capabilities. The translation of such strategies and ideas into workable solutions - capability realization - is enabled by business funded projects and programs. Large programs also generate a tremendous amount of documentation to adhere to existing governance processes and project management and operational frameworks.  

It is fair to assume that large organizations will have extensive collaboration and team management tools and platforms including enterprise portals, wikis, blogs and even social media tools used by teams across the organization. Therefore, it is important to keep the design of any Architecture Repositories KISS-S. 

Architects should recognize the capabilities of existing organizational tools and platforms, and either extend them to include architectural repositories, or ensure that any additional tool integrates seamlessly with existing platforms. The additional S at the end of the common acronym KISS is to emphasize the 'S'eamless integration and ‘S’earchability of the artifacts in the repository. For example, if your organization uses a Sharepoint based intranet platform, you are better off designing a simple repository and workflow extending that platform. 

Those searching for "Design document for SFDC XYZ program" or "Solution Design template" should be easily discoverable using a simple search on your enterprise’s intranet without having to search for a member of your team who can help find that document. 

Bottomline: All your relevant non-confidential architecture references should be searchable across the enterprise and not 'guarded' behind a firewalled repository. Only then they will serve the purpose: to educate, inform and influence organizational design.

Enterprise Architecture 101: Should Enterprise Architects Offshore re-brand themselves as General Managers*?

During the past few months, I spent some time coaching and mentoring Architects working at offshore development centers. A perennial challenge highlighted by Architects is the lack of 'global exposure' and stakeholder engagement. This is not surprising since much of the IS services – both at captive centers and IT firms – are focused on IS and business services for the global operations of their organizations or clients' business units.

The role of EA in offshore centers can be nebulous, especially in organizations where they lack frequent interactions with a wider group of functional stakeholders. Most of the EAs day-to-day activities focus on servicing requirements from clients or their global teams. In larger organizations, they try to ensure alignment of BIDAT aspects with their global counterparts, but such engagement generally adds a degree of abstraction from their end-users and clients. I am making a couple of broad assumptions here:

• Assumption 1: Architects in many organizations have a hard enough time engaging with business stakeholders; more so for EA's in captive and offshore centers who work with their counterparts or other client facing business partners for such engagement.
• Assumption 2: The bulk of an Architect's time and effort is spent on ensuring solutions are delivered in accordance with agreed principles and guidelines.

Visible aspects of "strategy realization," i.e. engaging in business funded programs and projects is where most Architects demonstrate value. They do this by reconciling roadmaps across functional and technical domains (link). Well defined roadmaps take into account the existing application platforms, infrastructure and processes. Architects also ensure that roadmaps focus on technology enablers, including Non-Functional Requirements (NFR), Integration principles, Data and analytics that will underpin successful digitization.

Follow the money : EA as a General Manager

Successful Enterprise Architecture teams try to ensure stronger Architecture governance by embedding it with the portfolio governance processes. While Roadmaps, Architectural artifacts and solution designs are important, it is equally important for these artifacts to be aligned with platforms and solutions being delivered to clients. After all, the clients and business stakeholders pay for a well functioning solution and not for the 'Architecture' and artifacts alone.

In many organizations, especially among the offshore delivery teams, the term 'Enterprise Architect' is loosely used to denote a senior technical or delivery lead. Therefore, it may make sense to take on the responsibilities and title of a 'General Manager.' Not only does it sound more operational, but in some cultures and organization the title may enable one to engage in broader aspects of Enterprise Architecture, that goes beyond typical 'solution design' activities, and may include:

• Influence and enhance daily operations of the business unit or organization
• Define and track Key performance indicators (KPIs) for a group or division and ensure 'profitability.' Tracking such KPIs and profitability may help influence specific organizational needs.
• Engage with external vendors and wider group of stakeholders on broader organizational strategic planning activities.
• Communicate strategy and results of strategy realization.

In many organizations, Enterprise Architects seem to have a hard time explaining the title and their role and responsibilities to stakeholders. Aligning the role with a title like 'General Manager' should bring them closer to the operational aspects of business, while continuing to influence strategy realization. This will not only enable them to gain credibility with their functional counterparts, but also engage in business funded initiatives they can influence. 

* There is another unintended, practical benefit here too: in large organizations with matrixed reporting structures, 'titles' still matter (even though the HR would like us to believe they are 'flattening' the organization.). In a few organization I have seen my counterparts include titles like "Director, Enterprise Architect" or "Vice President, Head of Architecture," therefore extending the title to include "General Manager" may be the logical next step too. 

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Thanks for reading! Please click, Like, Share, Tweet or Comment below to continue this conversation | Reposted on my Linkedin blog

Here is why Enterprise Architects need a quick primer in Finance, Costs and P&L

I periodically engage in digital forums discussing the practice of Enterprise Architecture and Technology Management. Many of the conversations focus on EA building blocks, domains and on aspirations like getting a ‘seat at the table,’ closer engagement with business. However, such aspirations remain academic, unless substantiated by business fundamentals including an understanding of costs and financials.

The goal of a commercial enterprise is rather straightforward: maximize shareholder value, and increase returns for investors. Most other goals, including profit generation and operational excellence are inherent in this. However, cost and financial reviews are generally absent during Enterprise Architecture reviews. Even EA frameworks - including TOGAF, Zachman – miss the big elephant in the room or deliberately underplay it.

What is the cost of your roadmap realization?

This rather simple sounding question is likely to stump many Enterprise Architects, and leave them fumbling for a response. Even when an EA has some information on costs, s/he can easily get overwhelmed when the discussions get deeper into TCO, financials of the Business case, levers impacting the business value or a discussion on CapEx and OpEx that ultimately drive the P&L. To be fair, defining Architecture roadmaps for BDAT, functional and technical domains can be a rather involved exercise. During such Architecture reviews, practitioners might make a lot of assumptions and SWAGs and may not get down to the costs and financials. 

In an earlier blog post (link), I described the process of reconciling EA roadmaps across functional and technology domains. Such reconciliation of roadmaps and capabilities across the landscape requires the extended team to agree on a few criteria, including a common table of contents (TOC), guiding principles and capture of the requirements, assumptions, timelines and other building blocks.

During roadmap reconciliation, Architects engage with their stakeholders to validate their assumptions, drivers and timelines. This is also an opportune time to engage in conversations on the cost and benefits of capability realization since KPIs, and success factors are generally tied to financials.  

I have engaged with business partners and stakeholders at various stages of digital transformation - from ideation to the translation of such strategies into actionable programs and projects (link). In many cases, the conversations remain at a ‘ballpark’ and SWAG level and might get less ambiguous as the programs evolve. However, Enterprise Architecture inputs are required while strategies translate to programs not after that.

Case in point: Cost benefits of migrating a portfolio to the cloud

A few years ago, my organization decided to move forward with a cloud migration plan, and I took on the responsibility for assessing the portfolio of 2000+ application platforms. The ‘cloud suitability’ assessment of individual platforms unearthed unique challenges and dependencies across the landscape. The underlying cost of platforms including application support, hosting and infrastructure, and complex licensing costs were shared across the landscape. Some of the costs and licenses had been negotiated years ago. While individual application owners understood and tracked the cost of ‘their’ applications, most of the shared costs were tracked globally. A phased migration to the selected cloud options – IaaS, Paas and SaaS – would upend the status quo.

It was obvious that a summary of the transformation cost had to be communicated to the stakeholders. An early review of the TCO and an understanding of the different levers of ‘cost benefits’ would minimize a ‘sticker shock’ when the individual transformation programs began to take shape. The team began data gathering and engaged a financial analyst to help with the modelling and validation of scenarios.

Break through the silos

In many organizations, there seems to be an unintentional ‘Chinese Wall’ that separates folks with experience in technology costing - Program Managers, Delivery Managers, Business Partners etc – and the architecture community. Architects are expected to focus on the BDAT dimensions while the ‘managers’ bring in the cost/benefit perspectives. The reason for such segregation includes the need to take ‘unconstrained’ view of solutions and ideas.

There is a merit to the argument since an early cost review could sway the solution options: after all, you don’t want a city-planner designing a township for the next century to be constrained by today’s costs. You might want him to be unconstrained and futuristic. Even this city-planner analogy is a bit flawed since businesses, and even governments are constrained by costs.

Bottomline: Enterprise Architects should remain grounded, especially when most of their business stakeholders focus on the costs and financials. 

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 Reposted from my linkedin Pulse blog |

Career advice: What is cost of TOGAF 9 certification? What are the job opportunities in Bangalore?

This was an interesting question that came to me via an online forum. My response follows

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a framework for enterprise architecture that provides an approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture.

Cost of TOGAF 9 certification may include the cost of training, certification exam and training material. This can range from $500 to $1000 depending on the training institution/academy where you seek your certification from.

Employers in Indian IT fall into three categories -

• Software service companies - Hiring managers at service firms are going to look at ‘overall marketability’ of the candidate. Certification is just one criteria. Skills and experience in functional and technical domains and platforms - e.g Cloud, infrastructure, SAP, SFDC, Java, .NET etc - matter a lot more to hiring teams.
• Captive development centers - Hiring managers look for people who can deliver solutions for their parent organization. Candidates with a strong IS delivery or Technical design background with specific technical domains and platforms - e.g Cloud, infrastructure, SAP, SFDC, Java, .NET etc - or functional domains like finance, Supply chain, manufacturing, Insurance etc - are more likely to be screened-in for interviews
• Startups - These are fast-paced, high-growth organizations that want folks who can roll up their sleeves and “just do it.” They may be light on processes and may downplay TOGAF.

So, why the hype over TOGAF? Multinational organizations looking to source work to India may have strong internal processes and delivery methodologies. Some of the Architecture and design principles may be based on TOGAF. The assumption is simple: Candidates who are “TOGAF certified” are more likely to have a breath of experience and a better fit for the organization. Therefore, hiring teams may be inclined to include the acronym while screening candidate resumes.

Will just a TOGAF 9 certification get you a job in Bangalore? No. It is not very likely under current market conditions. However, some employers use TOGAF as a screening criteria, in which case it is better to show you have the credentials.

Bottomline: There are very few "Enterprise Architect" roles in offshore centers. Don't be under an illusion that a TOGAF certification alone will land you an EA role… or for that matter any other IS job!

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• Reference - Official: TOGAF Certification Fee Schedule 
• Trainer example: “Standard cost for TOGAF training & Certification course is Rs 85,000 per participant.” TOGAF9 Certification - Novelvista learning Solution

China and the US race to become world’s first AI superpower: where does it leave India?

Last week, I blogged about Tech Giants Paying Huge Salaries for Scarce A.I. Talent : Why it matters. Articles and viewpoints on artificial intelligence and its potential impact on our lives are starting to become a regular feature. Business leaders are taking note of the disruptive potential of some of these technologies, and are leaning on political leaders to build a strategic edge that the technologies can provide the nations.

A couple of widely reviewed articles are comparing the American and Chinese capabilities in the space. One was an insightful review in The Economist magazine a couple of months back (ref: Chinamay match or beat America in AI Its deep pool of data may let it lead inartificial intelligence ). This was followed by an article in The Verge “China and the US are battling to become the world’s first AI superpower”

America government under its various departments including DOD, DARPA, NASA and NSF has long nurtured emerging technologies including partnering with corporate entities and startups in Silicon Valley, and actively courting academia from educational and research institutions.

Chinese political and tech learders have taken a leaf out of American playbook. These articles highlight various dimensions of China’s ambitions, supported and enabled by the government and a stated goal to become the “world’s leader in AI by 2030.”

China’s BHAG: be a global leader in Artificial Intelligence  

A policy report published last month makes China’s ambitions in this area clear.  The policy paper says that by 2020 it wants to be on par with the world’s finest; by 2025 AI should be the primary driver for Chinese industry; and by 2030, it should “occupy the commanding heights of AI technology.”

Anthony Mullen, a director of research at Gartner was quoted by The Verge saying “It’s a very realistic ambition. Right now, AI is a two-horse race between China and the US.  China has all the ingredients it needs to move into first. These include government funding, a massive population, a lively research community, and a society that seems primed for technological change. And it all invites the trillion-dollar question: in the coming AI Race, can China really beat the US?” 

China has a lot going for it in the A.I and M.L space:

• Government funding and support – AI figures prominently in the country’s current five-year plan. Technology firms are working closely with government agencies: Baidu, for example, has been asked to lead a national laboratory for deep learning. The country has more than 40 laws containing rules about the protection of personal data, but these are rarely enforced. It is expected that the government will loosen its regulations with respect to AI firms.
• A massive population – China has a large talent pool skilled in math’s. The country also has a tradition in language and translation research, which are basic ingredients for AI research. 
• A lively research community - Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of China’s talent and data strengths. Many AI firms got going only a year or two ago, but plenty have been progressing more rapidly than their Western counterparts. “Chinese AI startups often iterate and execute more quickly,” explains Kai-Fu Lee, who ran Google’s subsidiary in China in the 2000s and now leads Sinovation Ventures, a venture-capital fund. (Economist)
• Vibrant tech community - Chinese firms including giants such as Alibaba, Tencent and startups such as CIB FinTech and UCloud, are building data centers as fast as they can. 
• A society that seems primed for technological change - A report from the White House in October 2016 noted that China now publishes more journal articles on deep learning than the US, while AI-related patent submissions from Chinese researchers have increased 200 percent in recent years.

Leaders at top American tech companies are taking note of China’s emergence in the space. Chairman of Alphabet (parent of Google company) has been most vocal  (Ref - Eric Schmidt : America needs to ‘getits act together’ in AI competition with China)

Speaking at a tech summit organized by national security think tank CNAS, Mr. Schmidt predicted that America’s lead in the field would continue “over the next five years” before China catches up “extremely quickly.” CNAS’ summit explored “technology trends, uncertainties, and possible trajectories for how AI may affect global security. Presentations and discussion panels will showcase experts on artificial intelligence, machine learning, human-machine teaming, and security policy. Furthermore, the event will help build cross-disciplinary networks between AI engineers and policymakers to design and implement together solutions to manage the challenges ahead.”

American tech companies have not been idly watching the developments: The tech oligopoly — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft (link) – has also been actively investing in Research and Development (R&D) in China. Apple is opening an R&D center in the home of China's tech boom (the verge). Likewise, Bloomberg reviewed how “Amazon and Google Change the R&D Race”

Where does this leave India?

Indians led the outsourcing and offshoring IT services race, by some accounts, capturing more than half the share of global outsourcing. India continues to be a leading destination for IT, IT Enabled Services and business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which generates nearly $47 billion in revenue.

Most large Indian software services companies have announced ‘AI services’ Infosys’ former CEO Vishal Sikka was a big proponent of AI. Under him, Infosys launched ArtificialIntelligence platform Nia. Wipro also announced HOLMES, a set of cognitive computing services for the development of digital virtual agents, predictive systems, cognitive process automation, visual computing applications, knowledge virtualization, robotics and drones. TCS bet on artificial intelligence with Ignio

A Capgemini survey conducted between March and June 2017 was based on a review of nearly 1,000 companies that are using AI and have revenues of over $500 million across nine countries. The survey report titled Turning AI into concrete value: the successful implementers’ toolkit, highlights efforts of  American firms such as Accenture, Microsoft, and Adobe, that have established innovation centers in India.  

The Indian government’s Digital India initiative has a broad agenda that includes emerging technologies. However, it is not backed by the executive support or financial commitment one sees in China or America. There is probably a semi-socialistic hangover that is afraid new jobs being created will make low-skilled workers redundant.

India is ahead of many other countries when it comes to emerging digital technologies including artificial intelligence (AI). However, Indian tech community and the government are yet to gear up to take on Americans or Chinese in the quest for AI dominance.

Q&A on EA: What is the future of enterprise architecture? Is it good to become an enterprise architect now?

Here are a couple of questions that came to me via an online forum. My responses follow

Do you believe that demand for Enterprise Architects will keep growing over the next years?

It is well understood that the practice of EA is much broader than IS Architecture. Taking a simplistic definition from Wikipedia

“Enterprise architecture (EA) is "a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a comprehensive approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of strategy….”

What does this mean? People who can bridge the gap between strategy definition and execution will continue to be in demand. In many large organizations, these folks fill the dedicated role of “Enterprise Architects.” In smaller organization, it may not be a dedicated role but rather a senior executive or manager also taking on the role of Enterprise Architect. Some organizations may supplement the role by engaging external consultants.

Regardless of how organizations approach the role, the need for Enterprise Architects will continue to grow.

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In which field should I do masters if my long term goal is to become an enterprise architect?

A very interesting question. Enterprise Architects that I have worked with come from a variety of technical, business and functional backgrounds. A few had masters degrees and some even had PhDs: An EA I worked with had a PhD in Physics and had worked an CERN before he came to the corporate world.

So, to answer you question: a strong educational background will certainly help you get your foot in the door to gain technical or functional expertise. Such experiences gained in the corporate world are going to be more valued as you try to become an EA.