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ETCIO
Updated On Mar 21, 2025 at 11:37 AM IST
Read by: 100 Industry Professionals
Read by 100 Industry Professionals
India’s digital revolution is gathering speed, fuelled by rapid cloud adoption and a surge in online
services—from e-commerce to logistics and fintech. Yet amid this data tsunami, legacy databases
often struggle to deliver the performance and agility modern businesses require. Enter TiDB, an open-
source, distributed SQL database reshaping the way enterprises handle massive, real-time workloads.
Poised to seize a sizable share of India’s growing database market—estimated to expand in tandem
with the country’s trillion-dollar digital economy.
In an exclusive interaction with The Economic Times, Bhanu Jamwal, Head of India Business at
TiDB, discusses how distributed databases are paving the future of data management and why TiDB’s
vision for India centers on scalability, real-time analytics, and seamless migration.
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The conversation also offers a sneak peek into the upcoming TiDB User Day India 2025, a forum
for professionals to explore innovative solutions for modern data challenges.
1. What are some of the key challenges enterprises face with traditional database
management systems? And how are distributed databases like TiDB addressing these
pain points?
Enterprises grapple with slow queries, database overload, massive datasets, and the constant struggle
of maintaining schema consistency and operational efficiency, and traditional databases struggle to
meet these demands due to scalability issues in single-machine environments, limitations in real-time
processing, vulnerabilities to single-point failures, and complexity of data integration. TiDB tackles
these challenges with its scalable, high-availability architecture, separating computing from storage
for effortless scaling. Its HTAP capabilities enable real-time analytics without disrupting transactions,
while ProxySQL integration and Raft-based replication ensure resilience.
The following features make TiDB an ideal solution for modern applications requiring scalability and
reliability:
Horizontal scalability: It can scale horizontally by adding more nodes, and handling increased loads
without performance degradation, unlike traditional vertical scaling.
Automatic sharding: Advanced distributed SQL database automates sharding, distributing data across
nodes to balance loads and prevent bottlenecks, unlike the manual, error-prone sharding in
traditional databases.
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Separation of storage and compute: It separates storage and computation, allowing independent
scaling of resources, which is ideal for dynamic cloud environments.
High availability and strong consistency: It ensure high availability and strong consistency,
maintaining functionality even during node failures.
Real-time HTAP: The advanced distributed SQL database supports both transactional and analytical
workloads, simplifying architecture by eliminating the need for separate OLTP and OLAP systems.
Cloud-native design: It supports elastic scaling and deployment in various cloud environments.
MySQL Compatibility: TiDB's compatibility with MySQL allows users to migrate applications from
MySQL to TiDB with minimal effort in most cases
2. Can you share some customer case studies and highlight the key sectors TiDB is
focusing on?
Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce companies in India, implemented TiDB to support their
mission-critical applications. Flipkart achieved over 1 million QPS in read throughput and over
100,000 QPS in write throughput both with less than 10ms latency, showcasing TiDB's superior
scalability and efficiency.
Delhivery, a leading logistics company in India, leveraged TiDB's HTAP for real-time analytics,
achieving substantial performance gains and efficient data migration. TiDB enabled Delhivery to
handle thousands of requests per second with less than 100ms latency in their production
environment.
Our primary focus is on digital-native businesses, including e-commerce, logistics, fintech, gaming,
and SaaS companies. Their needs align well with TiDB’s strengths, making them our key target
segments.
3. What is your vision for TiDB's growth in the Indian market? Could you also share
insights on TiDB User Day India 2025?
As India’s digital economy is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030, TiDB is strategically positioned to
play a vital role in achieving this ambitious goal. We are dedicated to accelerating our growth in India
and are looking at fivefold growth in the country within the next three years, leveraging rapid
digitization in the country and the availability of a highly qualified talent pool. Our vision is focused
on strengthening our presence in India through strategic team expansion and dedicated support for
the developer community in India.
TiDB User Day India 2025 is set to take place in Bengaluru on 26 March 2025, bringing together
technology leaders, database professionals, developers, and tech enthusiasts to explore the latest
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advancements in distributed databases. The event will feature insightful sessions on overcoming
traditional database challenges, real-world success stories from industry leaders, and deep dives into
TiDB’s scalable and flexible solutions for modern data workloads.
Scale without Limits at TiDB User Day India
Don't miss TiDB User Day India 2025! Join top database experts and industry leaders to explore
cutting-edge innovations in distributed databases. Seats are limited— register now!
Note: This article is a part of ETCIO's Brand Connect Initiative
By Brand Connect Initiative ,
ETCIO
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Published On Mar 21, 2025 at 10:40 AM IST
Most Read in Corporate
OpenAI, Meta may be discussing partnership with Reliance for AI
expansion in India
OpenAI and Meta are in talks with Reliance Industries for AI partnerships aimed at expanding AI
offerings in India. Discussions involve distributing ChatGPT and hosting AI models in a planned data
centre in Gujarat.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Facebook parent Meta Platforms have reportedly held separate
discussions with Reliance Industries about potential artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships. The
report claimed that with these partnerships, the companies are planning to expand their AI offerings
in India. A report by The Information (seen by the news agency Reuters) cited two sources familiar
with the matter to claim that a potential partnership between Reliance Jio and OpenAI to distribute
ChatGPT was discussed.
What Reliance may have discussed with OpenAI and Meta
According to the report, OpenAI had a discussion with its employees where the company revealed that
it is considering reducing the ChatGPT subscription price from $20 per month. However, the report
didn’t mention if this proposal has been discussed with Reliance.
The report notes that Reliance is exploring selling OpenAI’s models to enterprise customers via an
API. The company has also reportedly discussed hosting and operating these models locally to ensure
that Indian customer data remains within the country.
Apart from this, Reliance has proposed running Meta and OpenAI models in a planned three-gigawatt
data centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, which the company claims will be the world’s largest data centre.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has an advice for students
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently advised students to master AI tools as the workforce increasingly
relies on AI. He also noted that AI-driven job displacement in software engineering would be gradual
but is set to accelerate over time.
During an interview with Stratechery's Ben Thompson, Altman said: “The obvious tactical thing is
just get really good at using AI tools. Like when I was graduating as a senior from high school, the
obvious tactical thing was get really good at coding. And this is the new version of that.”
“My basic assumption is that each software engineer will just do much, much more for a while. And
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then at some point, yeah, maybe we do need less software engineers,” he said while talking about
OpenAI’s hiring strategy.
“It kind of just seeps through the economy and mostly kind of like eats things little by little and then
faster and faster,” Altman added.
By TOI Tech Desk ,
TIMESOFINDIA.COM
Published On Mar 25, 2025 at 09:06 AM IST
8 of 8 25-Mar-25, 11:20 AM
