French technology firm Atos will recruit about 15,000 people in India over the next 12 months, adding to its existing workforce of 40,000 in the country.

“We are at a tipping point at this moment,” chief executive Elie Girard told ET in an interview.

“We are experiencing a productivity shock, like what we experienced 20 years ago, thanks to the acceleration of digitisation, and India is at the heart of it,” Girard said.

This, he said, has resulted in a demand boom across sectors, including public sector and defence, which would benefit employment.

India is by far the best provider of those skills in the world, but at present there is tension between demand and supply, he added.

The €11 billion firm invests about €400 million in India annually on employee-related expenses, including payroll and skilling.

India is an important market for the French firm, which is partnering with the government on the National Supercomputing Mission. The company has invested in NSM by way of assembly and testing of high-performance computers.

“I think this is very important for our employees in India that we are really investing in this,” said Girard. At present, almost one-third of its revenues are driven out of India., he said.

“We have a quantum lab in India, and I think India can lead the pack in quantum given the magnificent digital force you have,” he said.

The coupling of 5G with edge technologies will also open up new opportunities for services firms.

“A lot of our product development in cybersecurity is happening in India. We’ve invested in assembly lines on supercomputing and on 5G edge and are working to… make sure we can integrate those two technologies together to build the new services,” Girard said.

Atos has three clear differentiators that set it apart from other companies.

“We have hardware, and we have software on top of services, and this is very unique,” he said. “Second, we are number one in Europe and second in the world in cybersecurity services. To that end we are doing a lot of acquisitions there and I believe that in a year or two we will be number one worldwide in cybersecurity services,” he said.

Last year, Atos acquired Paladion, which has a significant presence in India.

Girard said a lot of the product development in this area was happening out of India currently. The other important part of the company’s strategy was the decarbonisation business line it has built.

Earlier this year, Atos made a bid to acquire DXC Technology, a deal that did not go through eventually.

Girard said that the company would not pursue this further, even as it continues to focus on smaller acquisition opportunities and is open to midsize options.

The post Covid-19 rebound currently underway is likely to plateau next year but will remain high, he added.

“There is a structural dimension to this, where the move to the Cloud has been understood by a lot more companies who were hesitating before the crisis,” Girard said.