Billionaire Romesh Wadhwani, aged 75 and a technology leader from Silicon Valley, is utilizing $1 billion of his own riches to invest in predictive and generative AI technology. Speaking to CNBC, the Palo Alto-based tech pioneer stated that "What AI will enable in the course of the following five years is something we were unable to do throughout the last 50 years". Wadhwani initiated the development of his venture AI software business in 2017 and his strategy is to specialize in vertical niches. He added that if he had just concentrated on horizontal AI, that would have been an effort in vain seeing as it is already being done by Facebook and Google, and there is no chance to go up against such giants.
On the occasion of his 75th birthday, Romesh Wadhwani celebrated with 100 friends and shared his thoughts on the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. He declared he would put $1 billion of his personal wealth into predictive and generative AI technology and his firm SAIGroup invests in three AI software technology companies. Throughout his 53-year career, he has witnessed several cycles of AI development evolve from concept in the 1970s, to robotics in the 1980s, to cloud computing and more powerful computing in the 1990s, and to the present where the availability of data is more abundant than ever.
Forrester forecasts that the enterprise AI software market will reach $227 billion by 2030, with Gen AI overtaking 55% of this market. Currently, slightly more than half of large enterprises have adopted AI software, with much smaller percentages among small and medium-sized businesses.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has praised Wadhwani for being an early investor in AI, years before the current craze. The focus of SAIGroup has been differentiation, so as to not compete with bigger players such as Google and Facebook. With a combination of AI substance and hype driving them, tech and chip stocks have surged, with OpenAI maker Microsoft seeing a 50% gain.
In 2017, Wadhwani began building his enterprise AI software business, with SymphonyAI, ConcertAI, and RhythmX AI launching in the succeeding years. ConcertAI, which split off separately from SymphonyAI, has grown its revenue by 35% to $160 million. It is focused on accelerating cancer research and matching patients with clinical trials.
SymphonyAI, meanwhile, is set to go public in 18 to 24 months and is quickly approaching $500 million in revenue run rate for 2023. While the company has to compete with AI enterprise software innovators on two fronts with vertical specialists and horizontal AI providers, Wadhwani is confident in the roadmap set for his business.
Wadhwani, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, exclaimed that no-one could have predicted that AI could do 80% of what it does today. The group's software AI tools have attracted customers from the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Save A Lot supermarket chain, Procter & Gamble, Nationwide, and Pfizer. Hopper, the CIO of Save A Lot, acknowledged that SymphonyAI’s data-driven retail technology was chosen after a three-year evaluation as “a best-in-class AI solution with a full suite of warehousing, vendor management and forecasting functions.”
Early in his career, Wadhwani worked long hours while running security and energy software company Compuguard (which he sold in 1981 to Brown Boveri), and American Robot Corporation. With the Rockefeller family’s venture fund Venrock, Wadhwani transformed the money-losing robotics business. In 1991, he moved to Silicon Valley and founded business-to-business software service Aspect Development, which was bought for $9.3 billion in 2002. Then, Wadhwani formed private equity firm Software Technology Group that invested in 33 companies. In 2015, his most successful deal involved the purchase of software integration service Symphony Teleca for $780 million.
Now, Wadhwani is the CEO of SAIGroup, and preparing for a potential IPO in two years. The company has recently appointed three new board members: Masters, Rus, and Harbaugh. Additionally, Wadhwani has created the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, to “help frame the right policies for AI governance”. He also enjoys listening to music and reading nonfiction books, and works an average of 70-80 hours per week from his Los Altos mansion.
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