Wipro CEO: Global Disruptions And Mideast War Are Driving AI, Digital Transformation Demand

‘One of my clients was saying that their ships are stuck because their raw materials are not going to the factories, and factories are not able to deliver. So they are leveraging AI to have that visibility across the supply chain so that they cut can cut short their losses or idleness in the factory,’ says Srini Pallia, CEO and managing director of Wipro.

Economic disruptions and the Iran war are not slowing down Wipro’s push to become a key international provider of AI technology.

Srini Pallia, CEO and managing director of Wipro, ranked No. 17 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500, told financial press and analysts at the East Brunswick, N.J. and Bangalore, India-based company during its fiscal fourth quarter 2026 financial conference call that the broader environment has seen geopolitical and policy disruptions become the new normal.

“Trade rules are changing, tighter immigration policies, and of course, conflicts continue to create uncertainties for industries and economies,” Pallia said.

Despite these headwinds, however, IT spending has shown resilience, Pallia said.

“Cloud, data, and AI continue to attract investments as they provide the infrastructure for future growth,” he said. “Our client priorities are shifting with spending decisions increasingly tied to outcomes. In fact, many of our client contracts are becoming milestone-driven and governed by value checkpoints. Regardless of this environment, we continue to make decisive investments to navigate the AI-first world.”

Pallia offered several examples of international enterprises that worked with Wipro during the quarter on their digital transformation plans. One of those customers, Singapore-based agri-business company Olam Group, earlier this month not only signed an eight-year engagement with a committed spend of $800 million, it also sold its Mindsprint IT and digital services business to Wipro, Pallia said.

“For the client, we will drive end-to-end transformation across ‘farm-to-fork’ value chain,

enhancing their operational effectiveness, resilience, and scalable growth,” he said. “As part of this agreement, we are acquiring Mindsprint, Olam’s IT and digital arm.”

As intelligence becomes industrialized and widely accessible, Wipro is making a deliberate strategic pivot to stay ahead, Pallia said.

“As you all might be aware, we have launched a dedicated AI-native business and platforms unit [early this month] to expand beyond a services-only model to a services-as-a-software approach,” he said. “This unit will operate with dedicated leadership, focused investment, and a distinct operating model to accelerate enterprise grade, agentic AI solutions. This unit will also incubate new AI-led businesses through an invest-build-partner approach and collaborate with Wipro Ventures and our entire partner ecosystem. Together with core services, this creates a dual-engine model driving transformation at scale while building AI native platforms that differentiate services, enables repeatable deployments, and of course unlocks nonlinear growth for us for the future.”

AI ‘Front And Center Of Whatever The Clients Are Trying To Do’

The increased emphasis on AI comes at a time when tech budgets are defying the broader economic and geopolitical environment and growing, Pallia said during the question-and-answer period following his prepared remarks.

“From a broader tech budgets perspective, [AI is] front and center of whatever the clients are trying to do, which is about not just productivity and experience, but also they’re trying to see how they can create new business and so on, so forth,” he said. “So tech budgets, as far as we are concerned, across industries and across markets are very strong.”

Pallia was also asked about how much the increasing adoption of AI can really impact the services business when companies like Wipro are still increasing their services headcount.

“From an IT services perspective, if we look at it from our pipeline, it is secular and it is strong, which is very important,” he said. “And if you look at the pipeline, it’s across vendor consolidation. It’s across cost management and also AI. Now, if you look at companies’ geopolitical situations, just to give an example, they want to make their supply chains resilient, right? So with AI being the core of that, I think they could create a very different context for themselves. In fact, one of my clients was saying that their ships are stuck because their raw materials are not going to the factories, and factories are not able to deliver. So they are leveraging AI to have that visibility across the supply chain so that they cut can cut short their losses or idleness in the factory. So to me, that’s a trend I’m seeing.”

When asked if Wipro is seeing any impact from the Mideast crisis, Pallia said the company’s employees are safe and its operations continue to run as expected.

“There is no specific impact in terms of how we deliver to our clients, and it continues,” he said. “From a Middle East perspective, from a client perspective, I’m sure some of the clients are thinking in the context of, ‘Should I hold on to my spend? Should I relook at my projects?’ And so on, so forth. We have not seen a significant impact right now, but we’ll see how it goes, how the whole situation shapes up. I think we may get a better sense of that, but at this point of time, it’s not significant.”

From a client supply chain perspective, Pallia said he talked with one client Wednesday who said there are challenges as raw materials come from different countries and go to different countries for production.

“From a factory perspective, and with the ships getting stuck, they see a complexity around that aspect,” he said. “But hopefully, if this situation settles down, then I think it should be business as usual. Otherwise, they’ll have to start prioritizing which products, where, and how to manufacture.”

Wipro By The Numbers

For its fourth fiscal quarter 2026, which ended March 31, Wipro reported total revenue of $2.58 billion, up 7.7 percent over fourth fiscal quarter 2025.

This included IT services revenue of $2.65 billion, up 2.1 percent over last year. However, on a non-GAAP constant basis, IT services revenue fell 0.2 percent over last year.

Note that IT services revenue appears higher than total revenue due to currency considerations. The company reports total revenue in the Indian INR currency and converts it to U.S. dollars, while it reports IT services revenue in U.S. dollars.

Wipro also reported net income for the quarter of $373.2 million, which was down 1.9 percent over last year.

For all of fiscal 2026, Wipro reported revenue of $9.87 billion, up 4.0 percent over fiscal 2025.

This included IT services revenue of $10.48 billion, down 0.3 percent over last year. On a non-GAAP constant basis, IT services revenue fell 1.6 percent over last year.

Wipro also reported net income for the year of $1.41 billion or 4 cents per share, which was up 0.5 percent over last year.