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 ..read more

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 compliance requirements. On Jan. 31, the Reserve Bank of India, ordered the company’s Paytm Paymen ..read more

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 “is always proportionate to the gravity of the situation,” the bank’s Governor Shaktikanta Das, said in a m ..read more

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 operations at up to $30 billion, which is more than half its market capitalisation of $42 billion in Seoul, acc ..read more

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 freedom of information laws. Sunak has faced intense scrutiny over his wife Akshata Murty’s ownership of close ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 Bhavan in New Delhi, the nation’s capital. The conference will focus on India's Strategic Trade Control rel ..read more

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 familiar with Google Lens, where you can use the phone camera and search for more information on a ..read more

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 Soudha, the state parliament, the high court, central library, Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, and Cubbon Park ..read more