India, Microsoft and Amazon
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"The hardest places to make artificial intelligence work are also the places where it matters most. If AI can serve India's classrooms, clinics and farms, it can serve the world," Nandan Nilekani, the architect of India's biometric programme, wrote in The Economist magazine last month.
OpenAI recently offered its ChatGPT Go plan free for one year to Indian users, while Perplexity partnered with Airtel to bundle premium access with mobile plans. Google previously tested this approach in Indonesia and 40 other countries before bringing it to India, suggesting meticulous market validation.
Even more than money, perhaps the most telling sign of the government’s seriousness is that “startups are looking very positively towards the army,” as one founder puts it. India has a well-deserved reputation for bureaucracy and baroque procurement rules. Yet tech startups find the relationship a surprisingly easy one.
Announced on Tuesday, the investment — Microsoft’s largest in Asia — will fund new data centers, AI infrastructure, and skilling programs from 2026 to 2029, building on the $3 billion the company committed in India in January.
India’s deep-tech startup ecosystem secured over $600 million in funding in 2025, propelled by developments in artificial intelligence, clean energy, and space technology
Meesho’s Mumbai listing lifts demand for Indian small-city consumer platforms as the startup climbs 60% after its $603 million IPO.
India has depended on Russia for fighter jets, submarines, tanks and missiles for decades. In recent years, that dependence has reduced as New Delhi strengthened defence partnerships with Israel and France.
Growth in 2025 is now projected at 5.1%, up from the 4.8% forecast in September, the ADB said in an update to its Asian Development Outlook, and higher than the 4.9% projection it made when it first released the report in April.
A clutch of big-ticket investments from technology giants into India's AI and cloud ecosystem show that the country's growing market and talent pool remains a magnet for MNCs.
India enters 2026 with fast AI adoption but uneven scale. Here are some AI adoption challenges in India and what CIOs must fix to create real enterprise value.
December 10, 2025. Amazon plans to invest more than $35 billion in India by 2030 to expand its operations by b
Big tech players are lining up to make investments that will boost India's data centre and AI prospects helping solve India's job creation challenge.
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