India’s efforts to build core AI technologies is at best at a nascent stage. At the country’s biggest tech industry lobby Nasscom’s annual flagship conference last week, we caught up with Debjani Ghosh, the organisation’s  president, for a quick chat on the topic. Ghosh spoke about how India’s tech services companies are approaching the AI opportunity, including lessons from India’s experiment with its digital public infrastructure.

India’s top IT companies might benefit as their biggest customers look to sunset legacy applications that are only being maintained for the critical data they hold, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention:  One97 Communications Ltd., which operates the Paytm wallet and payments network, has formed a committee, headed by Meleveetil Damodaran, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country’s capital markets regulator, to help the company meet...

Google is retiring Bard, with the launch of a more capable chatbot, Gemini Advanced, but first a couple of other headlines. Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, yesterday, stood by its actions imposing restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, stating that its order barring the small finance bank from most activities after Feb. 29, including taking any fresh deposits, was issued only after “persistent non-compliance” with rules. The action taken by the powerful banking regulator...

Layoffs at tech companies have continued into 2024, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. Hyundai Motors is planning to list its Indian unit to raise at least $3 billion in what would be the country's biggest IPO, Reuters reported yesterday, citing two people it didn’t name. Hyundai, the second-biggest automaker in India with a 15 percent market share, is in early talks with several banks for the fund raising, which would value the Korean automaker’s Indian...

Apple’s Vision Pro headsets are now available for sale at stores in the US, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. A UK minister on a trade mission last year assured Infosys that he would do what he could to help the company grow in the country, where founder NR Narayana Murthy’s son-in-law Rishi Sunak is prime minister, The Mirror reported. The paper obtained details of the April 2023 visit of Dominic Johnson, a minister in PM Sunak’s cabinet, using Britain’s...

Apple’s focus on India is paying off and the company also captured the top position in revenue in a calendar year for the first time, due to strong demand for both its latest iPhone and older models, according to market research provider Counterpoint. Overall, Samsung maintained its lead with the biggest market share, at 18 percent, in the predominantly Android market, and Vivo took the number two spot with 17 percent share.

Ahead of the union government's budget for the year 2024-25, the well-known expectations remain, such as tax breaks and incentives, but India's tech startups are also hoping the government will sharpen its focus on supporting them to develop more intellectual property within the country, which is crucial for our long-term security. They want more R&D spends, deeper partnerships with public labs, and simpler rules to help them go after global customers.

An important conference is to take place tomorrow in New Delhi on India’s international role with respect to technologies that are considered dual use, meaning for civilian and industrial use, but also for defence and military applications. India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Department of Commerce in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and other Government Agencies is organising the National Conference on Strategic Trade Controls (NCSTC), tomorrow at Vigyan...

Those of you who caught Samsung’s Unpacked event two days ago would have seen a Google vice president of search coming up on stage to describe a new AI feature on the latest Galaxy phone, developed by Google. Google calls it circle to search, and that’s exactly what it is. See something you’re browsing that you want to know more about? Well, now just circle it, and you’ll get what the geeks would call multi-modal search results, meaning across text, images and so on.  Android users would be...

Apple has a new office in India in the heart of Bengaluru, the iPhone maker said in a statement. The country’s tech capital is already home to so many of Apple’s teams, including in software engineering and hardware technologies, operations, customer support, and other functions, according to Apple. This new workspace, which Apple hopes will be a powerful hub for innovation, creativity, and collaboration, is located at Minsk Square in the center of the city, a stone’s throw from Vidhana...

VinFast, an electric vehicle manufacturer from Vietnam, plans to invest $2 billion dollars in India, but first a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. Japanese media and tech giant Sony Corp. is planning to call off the merger of its Indian unit with Zee Entertainment, more than two years after the deal was announced, over a disagreement on who will lead the $10 billion entity, Reuters reports, citing a Bloomberg News report from Monday that’s behind a paywall. Sony plans to...

Several multinational electronics and manufacturing companies including Apple’s supplier Pegatron and Korean auto giant Hyundai have committed to large investments in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but first, a couple of other headlines that caught my attention. The US Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered the grounding and immediate inspection of about 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft worldwide after a mid-flight emergency late Friday involving a plane operated by...

Discord has rolled out a bunch of improvements to its mobile app on both Android and iOS, but first: Byju Raveendran is contemplating using his 10-12 percent direct shareholding in the test-prep chain Aakash to raise about Rs. 600 crore to shore up his beleaguered ed-tech venture, Think & Learn, The Arc reported yesterday, citing sources it didn’t name. Thing & Learn, which operates the loss making BYJU’S online education platform, is under government scrutiny for a host of...

IN-SPACe has announced a new seed fund to support startups working the areas of urban development and disaster management using space tech, but first: Spotify fired 1,500 staff, cutting its workforce by 17 percent, a measure that CEO Daniel Ek said was needed to face the challenges ahead. This is the company’s third round of layoffs this year, TechCrunch noted. “I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions. To be blunt, many smart, talented and...

Even when Freshworks was a much smaller startup, Girish Mathrubootham just beginning his foray into the US market, one thing reporters like me would always hear about was Girish’s ability to surround himself with exceptional colleagues and soak up everything he could learn from them.  As many of you know, he likes to call them people who’ve “been there done that,” whether it’s someone who’s helped take a software company in US to its IPO or someone who’s already seen what a global technology...

The first trans-Atlantic flight using 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel was made between London and New York yesterday by Britain’s Virgin Atlantic, bringing the industry another small step closer to sustainable aviation. Test flight VIR100, which did not carry paying passengers, took off from London’s Heathrow Airport at 11:49 am UK time (6:49 am ET and 5:19 pm in India) and landed at New York’s JFK airport at 2:05 pm ET, CNBC reported, citing Flightradar24. The flight, which the...

India’s EV landscape is changing, with startups emerging across the value chain – from all-electric cabs to e-bikes and innovative purchase options. But first, some headlines: Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms knowingly employed methods that lured children on to these platforms, The New York Times reported on Nov. 25, citing un-redacted court documents from a federal lawsuit in the US, filed last month by California, Colorado and 31 other states in U.S. District Court...

US space agency NASA’s Administrator Bill Nelson is in India today to meet top government and ISRO officials, as both countries look to deepen their space exploration and scientific research partnership.  The visit by Nelson, a former US senator, “fulfills a commitment through the US and India initiative on critical and emerging technology spearheaded by President Joe Biden,” Nasa said in a press release on Nov. 24. Nelson was appointed as the 14th Nasa administrator in May 2021. During...

NVIDIA, which has a near monopoly on computer chips for AI applications, reported its fiscal third-quarter numbers yesterday that beat street expectations.  The semiconductor company’s Q3 revenues of $18.12 billion is a 206 percent year-on-year jump, reflecting the extent to which big tech companies are ramping up AI investments. Sales to the data centre segment, which accounted for 80 percent of the company’s Q3 revenues, was even more impressive, rising 279 percent. Sales rose 34 percent...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella moved swiftly to recruit OpenAI’s co-founder Sam Altman after his shocking ouster as CEO last week from the company responsible for the ChatGPT bot which has made AI a household term. Microsoft also hired Greg Brockman, who resigned as president of OpenAI after Altman’s ouster. Wall Street cheered, and Microsoft shares rose on the Nasdaq stock exchange, ending more than 2 percent higher yesterday. “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have...

Diwali crackers are about to add to the already dangerously polluted air in the national capital region. So how would it be if you could fly over the smog for an important meeting, in a tenth of the time it would take to go from Gurugram to Connaught Place, say, and pay about the same as what an Uber ride would cost. InterGlobe Enterprises, the company that operates India’s top airline Indigo, and Archer Aviation Inc., a Silicon Valley company that’s close to commercialising its electric...

Razorpay, a leading fintech name in India, providing a payments platform and banking-as-a-service software to some 10 million businesses, in the country, yesterday elevated Rahul Kothari to the position of chief operating officer for India and Malaysia. Kothari was previously chief business officer at the company. He will report to founder and CEO Harshil Mathur, the Bengaluru company said in a press release yesterday. This appointment sharpens Razorpay’s focus on the Southeast Asia region,...

Bumble yesterday announced that Lidiane Jones, who currently serves as chief executive at Slack, will succeed founder and current CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, on Jan. 2. Wolfe Herd will become Executive Chair at that time, the company said in a press release yesterday.  Nasdaq listed Bumble, which will report its fiscal third-quarter earnings later today, is expected to cross a billion dollars in revenue this year.  “Early in my career, I was the target of online abuse and harassment. I lived in...

Apple, last week, reported another quarter of revenue decline, on a year-on-year basis, but also one where the decrease was significantly narrower than nine months ago, amid heightened global uncertainties. The three months to Sep. 30, which is Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter, was also the iPhone maker’s best quarter in India, ever. “We achieved an all-time revenue record in India,” CEO Tim Cook told analysts and investors in a conference on Thursday last week. Apple shipped a record 2.5...