Comment by Riaz Haq on September 26, 2026 at 10:10am

Arnaud Bertrand

@RnaudBertrand
As is sadly often the case from Indian media - which is a big problem - this is completely fake news.

Here's the actual Bain study (bain.com/insights/from-…): it's four years old, puts India third in the world (behind the US and China), and says nothing about China having 12%.

It also measures **quantity** of AI talent, not **quality**, and quality is where India lags most. When measured on quality of talent, Carnegie just released a study that ranked India extremely poorly with only 4% of top AI talents at the undergraduate level (and even less at more advanced career stages), more than an order of magnitude behind China at 57.4% (carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/…).

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2103746655237624257?s=20

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India Plus
@india_plus_
🚨 India overtakes China in global AI talent, taking a 16% share versus China’s 12%. 

(Bain & Company)

https://x.com/india_plus_/status/2102978836069851286?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 29, 2026 at 8:50am

India readies $25 billion for Deep Tech investment as U.S. and China race ahead

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/29/india-investment-billions-tech-ai-u...


India is planning to invest $25 billion in its nascent deep tech industry as it tries to catch up to China and the U.S.
Deep tech is a broad term used for start-ups in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space tech.
Deep tech is becoming “very critical” to every country amid rising geopolitical tensions, leading to an investment push from the Indian government.
While venture capital and private equity leaders in India are confident that a global Deep Tech champion would emerge out of India, they were hesitant to put a timeline on it.

India is preparing to deploy $25 billion to support Deep Tech start-ups in the country, as it tries to catch up with the U.S. and China in the global tech race to cut its reliance on frontier foreign technology.

In the last decade, India invested $11.6 billion in Deep Tech, Rajat Tandon, president of the Indian Venture and Alternative Capital Association, told CNBC.


But now, the government alone has committed to invest $11 billion under the Research Development Infrastructure Fund, which will be matched by venture capital and private equity fund managers, he said.

Three or four billion more will be added, making ”$25 billion available to be spent on Deep-Tech investments,” Tandon said.

Deep Tech is a broad term used for start-ups in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space tech. Experts told CNBC that the funding push comes as the government has realized that frontier tech is becoming “very critical” amid rising geopolitical tensions.

China and the U.S. currently lead the global AI race, and while Chinese tech is seen with suspicion in India, Washington’s curbs on tech exports make it unreliable.

“Tariffs from the U.S. actually help this [Deep Tech] segment a lot,” Anandamoy Roychowdhury, managing director of Crane Venture Partners, said, adding that India will develop local Deep Tech companies as it fears that “important technology can get cut off at any point.”

Some of these fears were realized earlier in June when Anthropic disabled access to its new models — Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — for foreign nationals, complying with an export-control directive from the U.S. government.

The start-up funding leaders who had gathered for SuperReturn Asia said that India’s Deep Tech companies were at a nascent stage but added that the ecosystem was poised to create global champions eventually given the quality of ideas and talent in the country.

There is a “dramatic acceleration of innovation” in the Deep Tech space in India, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, president and chief executive of Startup Policy Forum, said, adding that some companies are moving from prototype to “real commercialization.”

Earlier this year, Vibe-coding startup Emergent, space tech company Skyroot and India’s full-stack sovereign AI company Sarvam became unicorns as their valuations crossed $1 billion during the latest fundraising round.

‘Candy store’

“I feel like a kid in a candy store,” Roychowdhury of Crane Ventures said, describing his experience of scouting for Deep Tech start-up investments in the country. About 80% of his $150 million APAC fund is currently concentrated in India, he shared.

In August, the IVCA, in a report, said that its survey across 100 funds in the country showed that nine out of 10 funds in India were deploying capital in Deep Tech startups, with 37% holding a stake in 11-20 such companies,

The report added that in 2025 the sector received nearly $3 billion in funding—its highest ever, even as overall start-up funding in India fell. However, it also underscored the massive funding gap with the U.S., where $136 billion was raised.

One of the key disadvantages for Indian Deep Tech start-ups over those in the U.S. is the lack of domestic capital required to scale these long-gestation, innovative investments.

Comment by Riaz Haq on Friday

Modi wants India to power the AI age. Residents are pushing back.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/09/asia-pacific/science-h...

MUMBAI – The view from Indian engineer Tushar Shetty’s Mumbai apartment captures a tension playing out around the world as the artificial intelligence boom fuels an unprecedented data-center building spree.
What was once a stretch of lush greenery outside his 21st-floor window is now a scar of red earth where trees were felled to make way for an Amazon facility that forms part of the tech giant’s planned $21 billion investment in AI infrastructure in India by 2030.

“I would not have bought the house if I had known,” said the 46-year-old, lamenting a purchase made just five months ago.

From the suburbs of Virginia to the outskirts of Amsterdam and Dublin, residents have increasingly rebelled against the spread of AI data centers, complaining of noise, surging electricity consumption, water stress and industrialization of residential neighborhoods.

That resistance is gaining ground in India, where Amazon, Google and Microsoft are pouring billions into facilities that advance Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambition to host “the whole world’s data,“ stretching from Maharashtra in the west to Andhra Pradesh in the south.

Unable for now to match the frontier models emerging from the U.S. and China, India is pursuing a different path, betting that dominance in the physical backbone of artificial intelligence may prove just as valuable.

The strategy sits at the heart of Modi’s investment pitch as the world’s back office loses its shine, even as the ambition collides with concerns over scarce resources and communities living alongside the infrastructure powering the digital economy.

India holds 4% of the world’s freshwater for 18% of its people, and data centers are clustering in cities already short of it. S&P Global estimates 60% to 80% of Indian data centers could face high water stress this decade.

In 2025, data centers used about 150 billion liters of water, a figure projected to more than double by 2030, according to research firm Mordor Intelligence.

The Amazon project near Mumbai is emerging as one of India’s most prominent flashpoints. Reuters interviews with more than two dozen residents and a review of official correspondence show growing concerns it will strain local power and water supplies and generate noise harmful to health, particularly for children and the elderly.

Amazon and local authorities have strongly defended the project, saying it will not burden public utilities because water and power will come from dedicated sources. The dispute has nevertheless sparked street protests and drawn opposition politicians into the fight.

Modi’s government has also mounted a public defense, promoting data centers online as “the invisible engines powering India’s digital life” and arguing modern technologies use water and electricity more efficiently.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Prime Minister’s Office and Maharashtra’s chief minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

On September 8, hundreds of residents, including elderly people, gathered beside the site holding placards reading “Data centers are energy vampires“. They want the project moved elsewhere.

“If the data center stops, we will stay ... If it goes ahead, we will move,” said Vasudha Shetty, 62, who bought a flat near the 54-acre planned facility, but wants to prioritize a quiet retirement.

More than 1,000 residents living near the site say the project was pushed through without meaningful consultation.

In Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, Amazon paused a 2024 proposal for three facilities amid concerns over noise and proximity to homes, saying it wanted more time for community engagement. Mumbai residents say they never got that chance.

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