Gurugram, May 7 (IANS) As the data localisation debate heats up in India, IBM India Managing Director Karan Bajwa is clear on who must finally own the data: the consumers.

On a hot afternoon, as the mercury soared to over 42 degree Celsius amid widespread dust, Bajwa sat relaxed at his office in Gurugram, listening patiently and answering cohesively to a myriad of questions – with the debate over data residency being on top of his mind.

“Your data is your data, the customers’ data is the customers’ data and we have never been confused about this fact. The data is not the Cloud providers’ data,” Bajwa told IANS.

In the same breath, Bajwa added: “We understand (data) residency requirements but we also differentiate very clearly on data flow. We need to be careful about how we treat the conversation on data flow because you cannot impose artificial boundaries”.

IBM is clear on the data philosophy — how to treat, store, analyse and make sense of those humongous data-sets.