New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- Ankita Sinha remembers the moment it hit her.

"There were 12 of us out of the 44 who were hired," she says. "Now, I don't see any of us in the senior ranks."

By "us," the 22-year-old engineer from Maharashtra means women.

Fresh out of college with a degree in electronics and telecommunications, Ankita was one of the few women in her batch who studied machine learning and artificial intelligence-skills that are suddenly in demand everywhere. Today, she's posted in a public sector undertaking (PSU), using those same tools to build predictive models for oil and gas leaks.

It's the kind of role she knows she can't afford to step away from.

"Just knowing AI won't cut it. If you take a break, you're out," she says. Her...