With the aim of attracting greater artificial intelligence investment, India is hosting a four-day AI Impact Summit this week, bringing together executives from leading AI labs and global technology giants including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare, alongside heads of state and senior policymakers.
The summit, expected to draw around 250,000 visitors, will feature high-profile attendees such as Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Mukesh Ambani and Demis Hassabis. India’s prime minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address the gathering alongside French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
Key announcements and developments:
India has earmarked $1.1bn for its state-backed venture capital fund, which will focus on investing in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing startups across the country.
Sam Altman revealed that India now accounts for more than 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users — second only to the United States — and said the country also has the largest number of student users globally.
Private equity giant Blackstone has acquired a majority stake in Indian AI startup Neysa as part of a $600m equity fundraise. Other backers include Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Asset and Nexus Venture Partners. Neysa now plans to raise an additional $600m in debt and deploy more than 20,000 GPUs.
Bengaluru-based C2i, which is developing power solutions for data centres, secured $15m in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Yali Deeptech and TDK Ventures.
Vineet Nayyar, CEO of HCL Technologies, said Indian IT firms would prioritise profitability over job creation, as concerns grow that AI could disrupt the IT services sector and weigh on stock performance.
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla warned that industries such as IT services and business process outsourcing could “almost completely disappear” within five years due to AI-driven automation. He added that India’s 250 million young people should focus on selling AI-based products and services globally.
Chipmaker AMD has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services to build rack-scale AI infrastructure using AMD’s “Helios” platform.
Meanwhile, Anthropic announced plans to open its first office in India in the city of Bengaluru, noting that India is now the second-largest user base for its Claude AI assistant after the United States.
