TCS CEO K Krithivasan takes home over Rs 28 crore in FY26 annual pay package

Wipro CEO Srinivas Pallia’s earnings at ₹53.6 crore, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh’s ₹80.6 crore, and HCLTech C Vijayakumar’s CEO ₹84.16 crore in FY25, the latter being the highest in the industry so far.

TCS’ annual report also disclosed that newly appointed executive director and chief operating officer Aarthi Subramanian got nearly ₹1.51 crore in salary and ₹1.83 crore in benefits and allowances and ₹15 crore as commissions. She had assumed the role effective May 1, 2025.

TCS is focusing on building an “AI Operating System” for enterprises as the technology moves from experimentation to scaled deployment, the management highlighted in the report.

“Enterprises will need an AI Operating System,” said N Chandrasekaran, chairman, TCS. “This Operating System will be a foundation of infrastructure, data, models, context, agents, and governance,” he said, adding that building such systems will require deep industry expertise and partnerships.

CEO Krithivasan said enterprises are looking for partners who can manage a unified control plane across the AI stack from infrastructure to applications.

“This control plane – an AI Operating System – makes AI repeatable and governable through orchestration in an enterprise’s context and embeds trust mechanisms such as security, monitoring, evaluation, and auditability,” he said.

He noted that while many enterprises already have access to tools and models, they lack the standardised control and context needed to safely deploy agentic AI systems in day-to-day operations. This is an opportunity TCS is targeting as an “Enterprise Intelligence Integrator,” said Krithivasan.

Chairman Chandrasekaran outlined four key focus areas for TCS in the coming years: building industry-specific AI operating systems to accelerate the deployment of agentic AI solutions; constructing India’s first high-density AI data centre with rack density exceeding 160 kW; expanding “Infrastructure to Intelligence” stack through 3,600 partnerships with hyperscalers, AI firms and industrial OEMs; and developing secure, resilient and sovereign AI infrastructure.

The strategy comes against a backdrop of slowing global growth and heightened geopolitical tensions which have led to tighter technology spending and greater scrutiny on returns.

Global GDP growth moderated to 3.4 per cent in 2025 and is projected to slow further to 3.1 per cent in 2026, amid rising energy costs, trade disruptions, and financial market volatility, the management said in the annual report.

Despite this, enterprises continued to prioritise technology investments, particularly in AI, core system modernisation, and data infrastructure.

FY26 marked a turning point for enterprise AI adoption with companies moving beyond pilots to scaled deployments for the first time since generative AI emerged in 2022.

The broader IT services market remains robust, with global services spending expected to grow 6.8 per cent to over $1.87 trillion in 2026, underscoring continued demand for implementation, managed services and infrastructure, the company said.