New Delhi: India’s growing investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and expanding data centre infrastructure have drawn significant global attention amid the AI Impact Summit hosted in New Delhi. Noting the same, The Economist writes that ‘India is in the midst of a data-centre investment boom’ and that “money is flowing into the country, but the benefits may prove temporary”.
According to the report, that cites JLL, a property firm, India’s “installed capacity (data centres) reached 1.3 gigawatts (GW) last year”. While the number is easily towered by US’s 38.7 GW and China’s 9.5 GW, the figure has “nearly tripled” since 2020. “And the growth is set to continue,” it underlines.
“During a global AI summit held in Delhi this week, the Adani Group, an Indian conglomerate, announced it would pour $100bn into data centres by 2035. Others such as NTT DATA, a Japanese IT giant that is currently the largest owner of data centres in India, also have big investment plans, as do America’s hyperscalers,” it says.
And the government is easing barriers and incentivising the data push. As the report cites, in the Union Budget this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that “foreign owners of data centres located in the country will enjoy a tax holiday until 2047”. In Navi Mumbai, where a significant amount of data is hosted, data centres have to pay 40 percent less for electricity than other commercial users, it says.
“Tamil Nadu and Telangana, two other southern states with thriving IT industries, also offer incentives. Local investment-promotion authorities in a number of states help foreign businesses clear India’s bureaucratic hurdles and fast-track the acquisition of land,” the report adds.
In Financial Times, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, writes how US must share the benefits of “AI leadership”. “The best AI stack is made in America, and the US is eager to deliver it to partners and allies,” he says.
He asserts that the previous Biden administration’s approach to the AI boom “relegated countries such as India, the UAE and Poland to a ‘Tier II’ group with significant restrictions on technology access”. Calling it a “lose-lose AI diplomacy strategy”, he writes how the Trump administration’s American AI Exports Programme is “built on the confidence that both developed and developing countries can build a sovereign AI capability if given the chance”.
Talking about the main obstacles developing nations face in the adoption and expansion of AI, Kratsios asserts that the AI stack is “both expensive and incredibly complex”.
“Countries need both financing and the technical sophistication for last-mile deployment of AI applications. It is not enough to purchase these tools; to realise their benefits, governments must learn how and where to use them,” he says, further reaffirming US’s commitment to help allies and partners overcome the obstacles.
Financial Times also reports that Tata Trusts is going through a rumble. Krishn Kaushik and Chris Kay write that Noel Tata, who chairs the ownership trusts, “is struggling to consolidate his control”.
He has tried to position his son Neville as a potential successor at Tata Trusts but has faced much resistance from the board.
“Neville was last year appointed to the board of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, one of the two main trusts, but attempts to install him in the second trust, Sir Ratan Tata Trust, have failed at the most recent three meetings,” the report says.
Moreover, Noel’s appointment as chair following Ratan Tata’s death has also not been fully accepted. “He has met resistance from Venu Srinivasan, vice-chair of the two largest trusts and chair emeritus of motorcycle company TVS Motor,” the report says.
In addition to this, the report highlights several “high-profile exits” in the last few months.
The tensions within the board forced the Indian government to intervene. “India’s home minister Amit Shah and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the top two figures in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, convened a meeting with some of the trustees and senior Tata management to calm tensions,” says FT.
In the BBC, Tom Grundy reports on how “IPL-linked teams are not considering Pakistan players” for The Hundred, the 100-ball professional cricket league in the UK.
“Four of The Hundred’s eight franchises – Manchester Super Giants, MI London, Southern Brave and Sunrisers Leeds – are now at least part-owned by companies that control IPL teams.”
“In messages seen by the BBC, a senior official from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) alluded to an agent that interest in his Pakistan players would be limited to sides not linked to the IPL,” says the report.
Grundy traces this as a growing pattern across premier leagues hosted by different countries. In last year’s The Hundred, only two Pakistan Internationals, Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasi, featured, notes the report. “No Pakistan players have appeared in the women’s Hundred.”
“No Pakistan players have featured in South Africa’s SA20, which launched in 2023. All six of its teams are owned by IPL franchise groups – including the four now involved in The Hundred.” However, a team in American-owned ILT20 has already signed eight Pakistan players, it says.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Bill Gates cancelled his keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit following scrutiny over his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
“After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr Gates will not be delivering his keynote address,” the Gates Foundation in India said Thursday on X, hours before his address in New Delhi.
According to documents released by the US Department of Justice, “Epstein helped arrange for Gates to invest in a biotech fund started by one of Gates’s top advisers and dangled allegations that Gates had engaged in extramarital affairs when he put the deal together.”
A Gates spokesperson termed the claims “absolutely absurd”.
Another report in Financial Times says the Union Cabinet in India has approved a $11 billion fund to “improve urban infrastructure”.
“Called the Urban Challenge Fund, the move signals the government’s intent to shift infrastructure funding away from a grant-based approach to a more market-led model.”
According to the report, projects that would be commissioned under the scheme will have to raise at least 50 percent funds through the market, with the government pitching in only a quarter.
On the idea of raising funds, FT says “the government’s bet is that market funding for these projects will, in effect, multiply its budgetary allocation fourfold.”
But, it adds, “India’s planned funding is unlikely to resolve the structural problems with infrastructure development”.
“The ‘smart cities mission’ launched in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term was similar in terms of the central government working with states and the inclusion of public-private models. It aimed to transform 100 cities into sustainable, economically vibrant, citizen-friendly urban centres. But the implementation was less than smart.”
“Responsibility for infrastructure is split across the central government, states and local bodies, which do not seem to co-ordinate on plans, budgets or timelines,” says FT.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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