Virudhunagar, a peaceful town in southeastern India, is better known for its ancient temples than for technology. Yet among its narrow lanes, residents are quietly shaping the future—teaching artificial intelligence systems used around the world.
Where history meets high-tech work
Mohan Kumar spends his days helping machines learn to recognise the world. “I work in AI annotation. I collect and label data to train AI models so they can predict and identify objects. Over time, they start making independent decisions,” he explains.
For decades, India has been a powerhouse for outsourced IT services, led by cities like Bangalore and Chennai. But a new trend is shifting that work to smaller towns, where talent is abundant and costs are lower.
This wave, known as cloud farming, is transforming rural regions like Virudhunagar into unexpected centres of AI innovation.
Bringing technology jobs to rural India
Mohan Kumar doesn’t believe he’s missing out by staying in his hometown. “There’s no professional difference,” he says. “Whether in a small town or a metro, we work with the same clients from the US and Europe. The training and skills are exactly the same.”
He works for Desicrew, one of India’s early pioneers in cloud farming, founded in 2005. “We realised people shouldn’t have to migrate to cities for jobs,” says chief executive Mannivannan J. K. “Our goal was to bring opportunities to where people already live and show that world-class work can come from anywhere.”
Desicrew offers a range of services—from software testing and content moderation to preparing datasets that train AI. “At the moment, 30 to 40% of our work is AI-related,” Mannivannan says. “Soon, it will be 75 to 100%.”
Teaching machines how people speak
A big part of Desicrew’s work is transcription—converting spoken language into text. “Machines understand text much better,” Mannivannan explains. “For AI to sound natural, it must learn human speech patterns across dialects and accents. That’s why transcription is such an important step.”
He insists rural India can match any urban tech centre. “People assume rural means outdated, but our offices mirror city IT hubs—secure data systems, fast internet, and reliable power. The only thing that changes is geography.”
About 70% of Desicrew’s employees are women. “For many, this is their first salaried job,” says Mannivannan. “It transforms families—bringing financial independence and better education for their children.”
Uncovering talent beyond the cities
NextWealth, founded in 2008, shares that same mission. Headquartered in Bangalore, it employs 5,000 people across 11 offices in smaller towns.
“Sixty percent of India’s graduates come from small towns, yet most IT jobs are in metros,” says co-founder and managing director Mythily Ramesh. “That leaves a huge pool of bright, first-generation graduates untapped. Their parents are farmers, shopkeepers, and tailors who work hard to fund their education.”
NextWealth started with back-office outsourcing before moving into AI work five years ago. “Some of the world’s most advanced algorithms are being trained and fine-tuned in small-town India,” Ramesh says.
Global demand, rural expertise
Today, 70% of NextWealth’s business comes from clients in the United States. “Every AI model—from chat systems to facial recognition—depends on massive amounts of human-labelled data,” Ramesh explains. “That’s what we provide.”
She believes India’s smaller towns are on the verge of a major transformation. “In the next three to five years, AI and generative AI could create 100 million new jobs in training and validation. India’s small towns can lead that change.”
Ramesh adds that India has a valuable head start. “Countries like the Philippines may grow in this field, but India’s scale and experience give us a five to seven-year lead. We should use it before others catch up.”
A growing industry with real challenges
Technology advisor KS Viswanathan, who previously worked with India’s leading tech trade body, believes the rise of rural AI is reshaping global technology. “Silicon Valley may design the AI engines, but India’s cloud farming workforce keeps them running,” he says.
He believes India is at a tipping point. “If this growth continues, rural India could become the world’s largest AI operations hub, just like it became the global IT centre twenty years ago.”
But challenges remain. “High-speed internet and secure data centres are not always consistent in smaller towns,” Viswanathan says. “That creates concerns about data security.”
Perception also plays a role. “Some clients still doubt that rural operations can meet global security standards. Earning that trust requires consistent performance,” he adds.
The human touch behind machine learning
At NextWealth, Dhanalakshmi Vijay fine-tunes AI systems to make them more accurate. When a model mistakes a blue denim jacket for a navy shirt, she corrects it. “Each correction helps the AI learn,” she says. “It’s like a software update—it improves every time.”
Her team’s work reaches millions of users around the world. “We train AI models that make online shopping easier and smarter,” she says proudly. “We help machines understand the human world more clearly.”
The digital future grows from the fields
Across India’s countryside, a quiet transformation is unfolding. In towns like Virudhunagar, young professionals and first-generation graduates are powering the next wave of global technology.
Their work proves that innovation no longer belongs only to glass towers and city skylines. It thrives in the classrooms, homes, and co-working spaces of rural India—where tradition and technology now grow side by side.
