In an exclusive conversation with CIO&Leader, Anjali Amar, Vice President & Country Head India and SAARC, Cloudflare, explores how emerging technologies—including AI, edge computing, and serverless architectures—are reshaping enterprise IT. She discusses the growing impact of real-time data processing, the role of AI in threat detection, and the potential of quantum computing to enhance security and performance.
Amar also highlights the evolving regulatory landscape and the critical importance of layered cybersecurity strategies. Drawing on advancements in API security and zero-trust frameworks, she underscores how technology leaders can harness these tools to optimize operations, meet compliance requirements, and safeguard against increasingly complex threats.
VP & Country Head India and SAARC,
Cloudflare
CIO&Leader: Could you provide insights into the emerging technologies Cloudflare is currently adopting internally and implementing for external clients? How are these shaping your strategic objectives?
Anjali Amar: Cloudflare is at the forefront of innovation, continuously leveraging emerging technologies to redefine the digital landscape. By integrating advanced solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and edge computing, it delivers unparalleled performance, scalability, and security for businesses. This proactive approach extends to exploring quantum computing, aiming to enhance security and performance while also providing new capabilities and services to customers. Additionally, Cloudflare empowers developers through serverless computing, allowing them to build and deploy applications without the burden of managing underlying infrastructure—resulting in greater scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.
In parallel, Cloudflare offers comprehensive support to customers seeking to strengthen their security posture and optimize online experiences. This includes advanced defenses against threats like Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, structured query language injection (SQLi), and cross-site scripting (XSS). By optimizing website and application performance, the company reduces latency and improves page load times, ensuring users enjoy a smooth experience. Reliability is another key focus: Cloudflare’s scalable infrastructure safeguards against downtime, helping organizations maintain constant availability. Moreover, by providing a single platform for overseeing security, performance, and reliability, Cloudflare simplifies the complexity of web management—a crucial advantage in today’s fast-paced digital environment.
CIO&Leader: With the rapid adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence, how do you envision the cybersecurity landscape evolving by 2025, particularly in the context of threats and defense mechanisms?
Anjali Amar: The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape at an unprecedented pace, and by 2025, both new opportunities and heightened challenges will emerge. Cybercriminals are expected to leverage AI for more sophisticated attacks, such as automated phishing schemes and deepfakes, necessitating advanced security measures that incorporate AI-driven threat detection and response. In this context, cyber resilience becomes paramount: organizations will need robust incident response plans, regular risk assessments, and extensive employee training to keep pace with evolving threats.
An evolving regulatory environment will also influence how organizations approach cybersecurity. As India’s government introduces new guidelines—complementing existing ones from bodies like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)—compliance requirements will intensify, especially under regulations such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA). Simultaneously, the ongoing shift to cloud-based solutions will increase demand for security measures designed specifically for these environments, including cloud-delivered SaaS services, threat detection, response systems, and security information and event management (SIEM) platforms.
With cybersecurity threats becoming more complex, the need for skilled professionals in this field will continue to rise. Organizations will invest in comprehensive training and development programs to build a capable workforce. In response to these challenges, defense mechanisms must adopt a layered approach—combining AI with edge computing, zero-trust principles, and rigorous data protection frameworks.
CIO&Leader: CIOs are facing mounting challenges in balancing the integration of emerging technologies with cost optimization and ensuring ROI. How does Cloudflare support CIOs in navigating these challenges while achieving both cost efficiency and technological excellence?
Anjali Amar: Our connectivity cloud provides a full-featured unified platform of cloud-native products and developer tools that empowers organizations to seamlessly integrate emerging technologies while optimizing costs and ensuring ROI. With a comprehensive suite, we enable businesses to develop, accelerate, and scale operations with complete control.
This architecture is futuristic, programmable, and composable. It integrates basic features like a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with advanced security tools such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Bot Management. This ensures seamless operation through a unified dashboard.
This approach simplifies operations, providing a single interface to monitor, manage, and implement solutions powered by emerging technologies. Customers can seamlessly integrate Cloudflare’s capabilities into other products or solutions, streamlining consolidation, reducing reliance on multiple-point products, and optimizing costs both short and long term.
CIO&Leader: A recent report noted a 3000% surge in cyberattacks on APIs in India during Q3 this year. How is Cloudflare addressing these risks, and what role does API security play in your broader cybersecurity strategy?
Anjali Amar: We offers robust solutions to safeguard against API-related attacks by implementing essential protections. A comprehensive approach involves a Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) platform. This begins with Automated API discovery and visibility that gives organizations a clear inventory of their API estate.
- Modern authentication and authorization processes are built from the outset
- API endpoint management to monitor metrics such as latency, errors and error rates, as well as response size for API-driven domains
- API Layer 7 (L7) protections, including advanced rate limiting and DDoS protection against denial-of-service attacks, brute-force login attempts, and other API abuse
- Detection of zero-day (new vulnerabilities found in software that doesn’t have a patch or fix) before a zero-day attack occurs.
In addition, we recommend implementing a “positive security” model for APIs which is more appropriate as APIs have a structured format to interact with them. As the opposite of a negative security approach, the positive security model permits only “known good” behavior and identities (with “good” defined by the API schema), while rejecting everything else.
By adhering to the positive security model, organizations safeguard their APIs by only accepting traffic that aligns with their defined framework. This approach effectively mitigates risks by blocking malformed requests and HTTP anomalies, such as credential stuffing attacks and automated scanning tools. Furthermore, leveraging Cloudflare’s machine learning-based security services enhances API visibility and streamlines security management.
CIO&Leader: With the rise of decentralized technologies, how is Cloudflare positioning itself to tackle the unique opportunities and challenges they present, particularly in securing decentralized networks and infrastructure?
Anjali Amar: We provide a comprehensive platform that enhances web security, performance, and reliability. Our suite of services helps customers protect their websites, applications, and infrastructure from cyber threats, optimize performance, and improve user experience with a cloud-native approach.
We ensure robust protection for both on-premises and cloud or multi-cloud environments, safeguarding against potential threats. With the growing adoption of cloud-based technologies, many customers are choosing Cloudflare to provide end-to-end security for their workloads, instead of relying solely on CSPs’ security services. We also offers a SASE solution, network services, and a developer platform to reduce costs, mitigate risks, and deliver scalable, programmable architecture.
CIO&Leader: Edge computing continues to gain traction alongside the growing demand for real-time data processing. How is Cloudflare integrating edge computing with emerging AI technologies to enhance performance, security, and scalability for its clients?
Anjali Amar: We view edge computing as a pivotal technology that is shaping the future of real-time data processing, and its integration with AI is at the core of our way forward strategy. By decentralizing computational power and bringing it closer to end-users, edge computing enables real-time applications, such as autonomous vehicles, IoT devices, and immersive AR/VR experiences. This combination of edge computing and AI allows us to empower businesses with enhanced performance, robust security, and unparalleled scalability.
Our global network spans more than 330 cities, allowing us to bring edge computing capabilities to customers worldwide. By processing data closer to end-users, we drastically reduce latency, enabling faster decision-making and seamless user experiences. This is particularly impactful for industries like e-commerce, gaming, and healthcare, where milliseconds matter. For instance, AI models for personalized recommendations or real-time analytics can now operate with minimal delay. Scalability is another key benefit of combining edge computing with AI. For instance, AI-enabled caching and load balancing optimize resource allocation dynamically, allowing businesses to handle unpredictable traffic spikes effortlessly.