The IT industry has been a trailblazer in workplace practices such as stock options and futuristic campuses that try to please the most demanding employee. What will the IT company of 2025 look like? We asked a few experts:The IT office of 2025 will be a hybrid between an open office and a shopfloor as humans work alongside bots, says Ganesh Natarajan, founder, 5F World. Smaller campuses will become the norm since not as many people will be needed. Offices will become spartan with fewer frills like upscale cafes and play zones. Overall infrastructure and real estate costs will drop as the employee base shrinks.With more people working flexi-time and repetitive tasks being automated, the average work week is likely to shrink to about 30 hours.More work will be done remotely and on the mobile. Uberisation or on-demand hiring will become the norm for certain roles, with companies setting up work pods where teams of experts assemble for short periods to work on specific projects and then disperse.Even in ancient times warriors would routinely undergo reskilling exercises to remain relevant, says Sudeep Sen, AVP, TeamLease Services.Constantly upgrading oneself will no longer be optional but a core requirement. Also, the onus will be on the employee to upgrade, not on the employer. It won’t be unusual for a 45-year-old employee to take a study break to keep up with the latest tech developments. Those who don’t will fall by the wayside.AI based bots will make humans redundant says former HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar, especially in low skill roles. But the red carpet will be rolled out to hold on to the higher skilled ones.“If companies invest even a fraction of what they invest in automation on improving employee motivation and wellbeing, they will see significantly higher growth,” he says.Sure, the paycheck may be signed by someone else, but each employee will act as an independent entity, taking responsibility to continuously market, build and grow themselves. This will lead to a change in the traditional role of the manager, who will no longer be directly responsible for the person, but more of a facilitator. The organisational structure will be relatively flat with multiple layers becoming redundant and the focus shifting squarely onto performance.India started building its own supercomputer in the late 1980s after it was denied American Cray supercomputers because of the technology embargo. Within years, on July 1, 1991, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing unveiled ‘Param 8000’, the country’s first supercomputer. A US newspaper had this to say: “Denied supercomputer, Angry India does it!” Param was the second-fastest supercomputer then.The supercomputers started India’s era of satellite launches, faster communication and speeded India’s missile programme. And of course, India’s IT industry took root.