India is fast emerging as a hub for data annotation services with flexible workers, mid-tier business analysts and even skilled data engineers contributing to build high-quality datasets.
India is fast emerging as a hub for services with flexible workers, mid-tier business analysts and even skilled data engineers contributing to build high-quality datasets.Data annotation, or simply data labelling, is the most crucial and foundational step for building high-quality datasets to train , enhance accuracy, curtail hallucinations and build safety guardrails against inappropriate or harmful content.As per industry estimates, by 2028, the global market for data annotations will be valued at $8.22 billion predicted to grow at 26.2% annually. Of this, the market serviced by India can exceed $7 billion by 2030 with a workforce of up to 1 million.According to HR services company TeamLease, 20,000 full-time workers are engaged in the managed services paradigm as annotators in India. Across international platforms, 50,000 Indian annotators are actively employed as independent contractors.“Annotation-as-a-service is on a meteoric rise especially in India,” said Alok Aggarwal, a celebrated author and chief executive of AI startup ScryAI.There are more than 400,000 annotators worldwide. The number is expected to double every three years, thereby having almost 6 million workers in this field by 2040, he said.Global AI companies Databricks, Fractal, Tredence and startups like Cropin and Minus Zero said they are expanding the team of in-house experts for faster, cost-effective data annotation while also depending on outsourced services in India.
