India's AI Impact Summit Draws Global Tech Leaders and Announces Major Investments
Key Points
- India's AI Impact Summit expects 250,000 visitors and features top executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare.
- The Indian government has earmarked $1.1 billion for a venture capital fund targeting AI and advanced manufacturing startups.
- Blackstone took a majority stake in AI startup Neysa as part of a $600 million equity raise; the company plans further debt financing and GPU deployment.
- Bengaluru‑based C2i secured $15 million Series A funding to develop power solutions for data centers.
- Anthropic opened its first Indian office in Bengaluru and partnered with Infosys to deploy Claude models in the telecom sector.
- Sarvam launched smart glasses named Sarvam Kaze and announced collaborations with Qualcomm, HMD, and Bosch for device integration.
- AMD and Tata Consultancy Services are collaborating on rack‑scale AI infrastructure using AMD’s Helios platform.
- OpenAI will open two new Indian offices and work with the Tata group to deploy up to 1 gigawatt of compute capacity.
- Adani announced a $100 billion plan to build renewable‑energy‑powered AI data centers by 2035.
India is hosting a four‑day AI Impact Summit that brings together executives from leading AI labs and Big Tech, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, along with heads of state. The event, expected to attract 250,000 visitors, features speeches by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. India has earmarked $1.1 billion for a state‑backed venture capital fund targeting AI and advanced manufacturing startups. Major deals were announced, such as Blackstone’s majority stake in Indian AI startup Neysa and a $15 million Series A for Bengaluru‑based C2i. Partnerships between global firms and Indian companies aim to deploy AI models across sectors, while the government seeks $200 billion in AI infrastructure investment over the next two years.
Summit Overview
India is hosting a four‑day AI Impact Summit that will be attended by executives from major AI labs and Big Tech, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, as well as heads of state. The event expects 250,000 visitors and will feature Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is scheduled to deliver a speech with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Government Funding and Policy
India has earmarked $1.1 billion for a state‑backed venture capital fund that will invest in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing startups across the country. The tech minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the country wants to attract over $200 billion in investment for AI infrastructure in the next two years. In addition, Indian conglomerate Adani announced an allocation of $100 billion to build AI data centers powered by renewable energy by 2035, which could spur an additional $150 billion in related investments.
Major Corporate Investments
Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Indian AI startup Neysa as part of a $600 million equity fundraise, with participation from Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Asset, and Nexus Venture Partners. The company plans to raise another $600 million in debt and deploy more than 20,000 GPUs. Bengaluru‑based C2i, which is building a power solution for data centers, raised $15 million in a Series A round from Peak XV, Yali Deeptech, and TDK Ventures. AMD is teaming up with Tata Consultancy Services to develop rack‑scale AI infrastructure based on AMD’s “Helios” platform.
Startup Activity and Partnerships
Anthropic announced the opening of its first office in Bengaluru and a partnership with Infosys to deploy Claude models and tools to Indian enterprises, beginning with the telecommunications sector. Indian AI company Sarvam introduced smart glasses called Sarvam Kaze and released several new models, including a dubbing model, a speech‑to‑text model, a text‑to‑speech model, and a vision model for OCR. Sarvam also announced partnerships with Qualcomm, HMD, and Bosch to bring its AI models to smartphones, feature phones, cars, laptops, and smart glasses. Voice AI startup Gnani released a zero‑shot voice cloning text‑to‑speech model called Vachana, supporting 12 languages. Cohere Labs launched a family of multilingual models with open weights that support over 70 languages and can run on local devices.
Future Outlook
OpenAI plans to open two new offices in Bengaluru and Mumbai and has partnered with the Tata group to deploy 100 megawatts of compute in India, with an aim to scale up to 1 gigawatt. The Indian government’s AI consortium BharatGen released a 17‑billion‑parameter model called Param 2 that works across 22 languages. Streaming service JioHotstar will use ChatGPT to aid content discovery with conversational search. Industry leaders such as Vinod Khosla warned that AI could dramatically reshape the IT services and BPO sectors within five years, emphasizing the need for Indian talent to focus on AI‑based products and services for global markets.