In today’s episode, Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group, a research and advisory company, talks about how the world of tech services is changing rapidly. The expectation is that what was manual and time-consuming yesterday should be codified and efficient today. Value is to be had at incrementally higher levels of abstraction and outcomes will …

In this episode, Kamal Karanth, co-founder and CEO of Xpheno, a staffing firm in Bengaluru, explains the modest increase in open IT positions in recent times. Consider that in FY22, the IT sector alone hired some 2,30,000 people, net, according to the industry lobby Nasscom. That fell to 60,000 in FY23 and FY24 was about the same. Not much has chan…

In this episode, Sumeet Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Leadership Boulevard, more popularly known as Leadschool, offers a quick update on the company’s latest product. Techbook, as they’re calling it, is actually a physical textbook, designed and engineered to comprise scannable pages that link up with an AR solution. This opens up a world of interac…

Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of Zoho, offers a quick update on the AI investments at India’s biggest software products company. In an interview with Forbes India at the company’s annual user conference on Sep. 25, Vembu spoke about small models Zoho has commercialized, efforts to ensure enterprise customers’ security and privacy in putting suc…

AI products and services will likely grow between 40 percent and 55 percent annually, potentially reaching $990 billion by 2027, the consultancy Bain & Company projects in its fifth annual global technology report. In this episode, David Crawford, a partner and chairman of the consultancy’s global technology practice, discusses some of the top take…

In this episode, Sidu Ponnappa, co-founder and CEO of Realfast, unpacks the hype cycle, challenges and opportunities in ‘agentic AI.’ Realfast, a Singapore and Bengaluru startup, recently out of stealth mode, is initially offering AI assistants to Salesforce implementation services teams. In this quick chat, Ponnappa also talks about the intangible…

The leaders of the Quad nations, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Anthony Albanese of Australia, and Kishida Fumio of Japan, and US President Joe Biden unveiled the Quad Cancer Moonshot, a collaborative effort in the Indo-Pacific region, in a statement called The Wilmington Declaration, on Sep. 21. This partnership will initially focus on ce…

Is the enterprise opportunity on the rise in the world of augmented reality, or AR? Just this week, Microsoft, maker of HoloLens, has announced a partnership with Anduril, the US deep-tech defence startup founded by Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Oculus headset, now part of Meta, and Snap has released the latest version of its AR Spectacles. To…

How satisfied are enterprise customers with the results of their outsourcing investments when it comes to generative AI? Mrinal Rai, assistant director and principal analyst at ISG, unpacks what the technology sourcing and advisory company’s customers are saying about this. Rai, who leads research for the future of work and enterprise customer expe…

Microsoft has unveiled new AI features in its Copilot product. The features started rolling out this week and Microsoft also announced a large deal with Vodafone Group under which 68,000 or about two-thirds of the British mobile services provider’s employees will get licensed access to the new Copilot. Among the features are Copilot Pages, deeper i…

In today’s episode, we bring you an update from Nakul Aggarwal, co-founder and CTO of BrowserStack, a leading SaaS company from India, providing software app and browser testing infrastructure and products. Aggarwal talks about the rationale behind the acquisition of Bird Eats Bug, in Berlin, which BrowserStack announced yesterday. He also talks ab…

Ahead of Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 earnings results, on Aug. 28 (Aug. 29, 2:30 a.m. local time in India) we look at the stunning rise of the $2 trillion chip maker as the tech backbone for the explosion of generative AI over the last two years. Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester Research, and Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Te…

Apple, as widely anticipated leading up to its annual Worldwide Developer Conference, announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone, iPad and MacBooks. The tie up evoked strident criticism from Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in particular around data privacy. In this episode, Jaspreet Bindra, an independent AI and ethic…

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, WWDC, kicks off later today, and anticipation is high with respect to the iPhone maker’s AI roadmap, as it is generally considered to lag Android rivals such as Samsung and Google – especially in the era of generative AI. Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Technology Market Research,…

Access to talent, value and innovation – these are all reasons that multinational companies are either setting up IT and software-driven R&D centres in India or expanding existing facilities. Some, however, are reducing the workforce in such centres and there’s also a set of companies considering exiting their GCCs altogether. To understand what’s …

In this episode, Megha Chawla, senior partner at the multinational consultancy Bain & Company, talks about why India’s tech talent has become a non-negotiable part of the global CEO’s strategy, discussing the prospects for the nation’s tech landscape, as India returns to a coalition government at the centre after a decade. In the age of AI, India’s…

Indian voters have denied a majority to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP. However, as Modi is set to remain in power for a historic third term, leading the coalition NDA, three well-known VC investors unpack what this means for India’s tech and startup ecosystem. Ninad Karpe, founding partner at 100X.VC, in Mumbai, Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of T…

Agnikul Cosmos, a space launch vehicle startup in Chennai, yesterday successfully tested its first technology demonstrator rocket, Agnibaan, that showed its one-piece 3D-printed engine worked as intended, in a sub-orbital mission. To understand the significance of this success, Forbes India spoke with Narayan Prasad, chief operations officer at Sat…

A year after it first announced the plan, the Reserve Bank of India yesterday launched a Fintech Repository that the regulator hopes will foster innovation by allowing it to stay abreast of the cutting edge of tech in the industry. To get a sense of why fintech entrepreneurs are welcoming this move, Forbes India spoke with Manish Kumar, co-founder …

The demand for data centres in India is surging, driven by everything from the expansion of the so-called global capability centres to the rise of our digital economy and the laws around localization of data as required under the data protection rules. In this episode, Arjun P Gupta, founder and CEO of Smart Joules, in New Delhi, which provides HVA…

Google’s large investment in Flipkart comes as a pleasant surprise even to seasoned investors in India’s digital economy – at a time when late-stage funding is yet to return, and the funding winter continues even as the monsoons will be a welcome relief from record heat waves across the subcontinent. Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn, and an ear…

Google is reportedly ready to make its Pixel phones in India, starting with the Pixel 8 to be assembled at a Foxconn International plant in Tamil Nadu. Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, and Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, unpack the big picture here. Google is starting small, but has…

Why are some of India’s best-known fintech startups, but also others, engaging in what is popularly called a “reverse flip” to move their holding parent entities back to India from countries such as the US, Singapore and so on. It can be a fairly complex, time-consuming process, but these companies – Groww, PineLabs and Razorpay are in the news – f…

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered a glimpse into his plan for how the company will bring AI to everyone – via its Copilot stack on its Azure cloud platform, keynoting the company’s 14th edition of its annual developer conference, Build, on May 21. In this episode, Sidhant Rastogi, president for technology services and platforms at Zinnov, a manag…

A report last week from Tata Consultancy Services on “AI for Business” revealed some of the barriers to achieving the so-called “transformation” that large companies seek, in implementing new tech and processes – especially generative AI in this case. So where does the IT services industry really stand with respect to generative AI as an opportunit…

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 opportuni…

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 Meleve…

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, includi…

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 …

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, Th…

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 predomin…

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…

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 Exte…

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 ju…

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 p…

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 disagreem…

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 …

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 …

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, Tech…

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 th…

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…

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…

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 spearhead…

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 c…

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 r…

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 com…

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 …

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…

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 a…

In today’s episode we take a quick look at news of US President Joe Biden’s executive order to regulate AI, but first one other headline that’s caught everyone’s attention at home. Headlines Several politicians from various opposition parties in India have been sent notifications by Apple that they were being targeted by “state-sponsored attackers,…