Business

New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday told world leaders that artificial intelligence (AI) is the technology that inspired him the most and represented the “biggest platform shift of our lifetimes”.

"No technology has me dreaming bigger than AI. It is the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes. We are on the cusp of hyper progress and new discoveries that can help emerging economies leapfrog legacy gaps," Pichai said during the opening ceremony of the ‘India AI Impact Summit’ here.

He urged governments and industry to act boldly and responsibly in a collaborative manner to ensure the technology benefits everyone.

He also warned that positive outcomes from AI are not guaranteed or automatic. The Google CEO highlighted scientific advances powered by AI, citing AlphaFold — Google DeepMind’s protein‑folding breakthrough used by "over three million researchers in more than 190 countries to develop malaria vaccines".

AlphaFold compressed decades of research into a database now open to the world, he said, adding that Google is cataloguing DNA disease markers and building AI agents that act as true partners in the scientific method.

Google CEO also mentioned the company's expanding investments in India, including a full‑stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam that will form part of a $15 billion infrastructure investment.

"When finished, this hub will house gigawatt-scale compute and a new international subsea cable gateway, bringing jobs and the benefits of cutting-edge AI to people and businesses across India," he said.

"It is wonderful to be back in India. Every time I visit, I am struck by the pace of change and today is no different," Pichai said.

Pichai mentioned that the company is also building subsea optic cables, including four new systems between the United States and India.

"AI will undeniably reshape the workforce — automating some roles, evolving others and creating entirely new careers," he said, adding Google’s training of 100 million people in digital skills will help employees adapt to AI‑driven changes.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at the AI India Summit to greet and welcome world leaders to the event. The gathering attracted over 500 global AI leaders, including 100 CEOs and founders, 150 academicians and researchers, and 400 CTOs, VPs, and philanthropists.

Government participation includes more than 20 heads of state and government, along with around 60 ministers and vice ministers, fostering unprecedented dialogue on AI's transformative potential.

—IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) India has the potential to lead a new human revolution powered by purposeful and responsible Artificial Intelligence, Vishal Sikka, founder and CEO of Vianai, said on Thursday.

Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 here, Sikka said AI presents a historic opportunity for the country.

“India has previously transformed areas like connectivity and food security within a generation, and now it has a chance to build the next era through AI,” he noted.

Sikka, who is also the former CEO of Infosys, said AI can empower “a billion entrepreneurs” in India.

“AI should not just help people earn a living but enable them to build meaningful lives for themselves and others,” he told.

He stressed that India can move towards a true human revolution if AI is developed and used in a purposeful and responsible way.

He highlighted the massive productivity gains that AI can deliver when used properly. Sikka shared examples of a colleague at Stanford who rebuilt a large service in just 14 days using generative AI -- a task that earlier took 15 engineers nine months to complete.

He also spoke about a business leader who made a major strategic decision in a few days instead of taking a year, thanks to AI.

Calling AI an “incredible power,” Sikka said it gives instant access to knowledge in any language and can summarise information in different formats.

However, he cautioned that AI’s benefits are not automatic. To unlock real value, users must understand both its strengths and its limitations.

Sikka, who holds a PhD in AI, said there is still a large gap between large language models and their practical use inside enterprises.

“Bridging this gap requires building systems that are correct, trustworthy, verifiable and reliable. Only then can businesses truly benefit from AI,” he said.

He added that once this gap is closed, AI can remove the complexity of legacy systems within companies and transform entire industries.

“With imagination and responsible implementation, AI can simplify processes, boost productivity and empower individuals across sectors,” Sikka mentioned.

--IANS

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Mumbai, Feb 19 (IANS) Due to macro stability and recent trade deals, the earnings visibility of Indian markets improved, opening new opportunities after a phase of correction, a report said on Thursday.

The report from PL Asset Management, the asset management arm of PL Capital Group, recommended a Dynamic allocation strategy with gold hedge to investors. It is a "rule‑based multi‑asset allocation framework that dynamically calibrates exposure across equities and gold based on macro signals, valuation metrics and volatility regimes," the report said.

"With valuations normalising, domestic liquidity staying robust and internal risk indicators stabilising, the market is transitioning from a phase of correction to one of emerging opportunity," the firm forecasted.

Indian equities entered a consolidation phase in January 2026 amid global de‑risking, currency pressures and commodity volatility, and equity valuations have moderated toward a long‑term average range of approximately 19–20x earnings, the report noted. The report said that the moderation in valuations have improved the medium-term risk-reward profile of equities.

While the correction exposed narrow market participation, leading quantitative indicators suggest markets may be transitioning from consolidation toward early recovery, the firm suggested.

“With Budget clarity and strengthening trade linkages enhancing earnings visibility, we remain constructively positioned for the next phase of recovery,” said Siddharth Vora, Head - Quant Investment Strategies & Fund Manager, PL Asset Management.

According to the firm, Union Budget 2026 maintained policy continuity with a balanced focus on fiscal prudence and growth, sustaining capex, infrastructure, and manufacturing reforms that improve earnings visibility across industrial and export-led sectors. With inflation contained and external balances stable, macro fundamentals remain anchored.

The asset management firm said that the ‘value’ factor had outperformed in recent months, suggesting investors are gradually repositioning portfolios ahead of broader participation. Further, equities are trading near multi-cycle relative lows versus gold, reinforcing the case for improving forward return probabilities as volatility stabilizes, it said.

The firm signalled a rotation toward higher beta and cyclical sectors — historically an early marker of improving risk appetite.

—IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) At the India AI Impact Summit here, Voice AI platform Shunya Labs, a Nasscom GenAI cohort startup, on Thursday announced launch of Vaķ, an open‑weight voice‑AI and a real-time translation system that supports 55 Indian languages and 2,970 language‑pair translations.

"Vaķ is accompanied by the world's number 1-ranked open-weight speech recognition model and a neural text-to-speech engine, all released simultaneously and all free to deploy," the company said in a statement.

The company claimed that Vaķ is a real-time "Any-to-Any Translation system that converts speech in any of India's 55 languages into any of the other 54," instantly, with end-to-end latency under 1.5 seconds.

Shunya Labs said the system also features zero‑shot voice cloning, which ensures no prior training data is required. Vaķ’s neutral TTS delivers natural-sounding output across all 55 languages with streaming capability, custom voice creation, zero-shot voice cloning, and prosody and emotion control, the statement said.

The system also preserves the speaker's voice and emotional register, it added.

The Pingala ASR ranked first "on the Hugging Face OpenASR leaderboard with the lowest ever recorded 3.10 per cent word‑error rate."

It features a CPU-first architecture delivering sub-250ms latency for edge and offline deployment. The full model weights are publicly available for local deployment, enabling organisations to run the models on‑premises without sending voice data to foreign servers.

It also aids sovereign deployment for government agencies, hospitals reaching rural patients, and courts delivering justice in local languages.

Vaķ made cross-linguistic citizen services, healthcare outreach, judicial access, and educational delivery technically and economically viable for the first time at a national scale, the release said.

“This is a sovereign, self-funded innovation built within the Nasscom ecosystem. Our vision is simple: every developer can build, every government can deploy, and every Indian can be heard in their own language,” said Sourav Bandyopadhyay, Founder & Chief Scientist, Shunya Labs.

Vaķ covers 43 Indo‑Aryan languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Bhojpuri, and Rajasthani, 7 Dravidian languages, 3 Sino‑Tibetan and 1 Austroasiatic language, plus Indian English, collectively reaching over 1.17 billion native speakers in aggregate, the startup said.

—IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) Adobe is expanding the opportunity for creativity for millions of students across India, empowering them with AI skills, further accelerating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision," Shantanu Narayen, Chair and CEO, Adobe, said on Thursday.

“I look forward to seeing what the students of India create with Adobe's industry-leading tools, and in doing so accelerating Viksit Bharat,” he said on the sidelines of the ‘India-AI Impact Summit 2026’ here.

Adobe announced a strategic investment to accelerate AI-driven creativity and productivity for India’s next generation of talent.

“Adobe is enabling the next generation to be ready for AI-first careers by putting its industry-leading applications such as Firefly, Photoshop and Acrobat, into the hands of students for free, via accredited higher education institutions across India,” said the company.

The toolkit provides access to Adobe’s creativity and productivity software along with curriculum, training and credentials that will enable students to stand out when they graduate.

As students learn AI skills, they will benefit from Adobe's unique approach to generative AI and cutting-edge innovation — including access to AI-generated content that is safe and ready for commercial use, as well as choice and flexibility to work with other generative AI models directly in the applications.

Adobe Firefly — the all-in-one creative AI studio that brings together the world's best creative AI models in one place — seamlessly integrates the top industry models from partners like Google, OpenAI, Runway and more, so students have choice and flexibility with models and tools to generate in their own unique style.

With Acrobat Pro, students can boost their productivity and collaboration, easily editing text and images to get their best work done.

Adobe's announcement reinforces the government’s Create in India vision and complements the Union Budget 2026 which focused on creating two million jobs in the field of Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) by 2030.

In partnership with the government, Adobe will make its AI first offer, along with our industry endorsed curriculum, free for the 15,000 schools and 500 colleges that will have Content Creator Labs.

--IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday said India is witnessing extraordinary growth in Artificial Intelligence adoption, describing the country as one of the company’s fastest-growing markets globally.

Speaking to media on the sideline of ‘India AI Impact Summit 2026’ in the national capital, Altman said India's AI opportunity is amazing. It's great to be here.

“This is one of our fastest growing markets in the world. Maybe it's the fastest at this point. It's certainly the fastest for Codex,” Altman told reporters.

Altman highlighted that India is now home to over 100 million weekly users of ChatGPT, ranging from students and teachers to developers and entrepreneurs.

“There’s more than 100 million people. They use ChatGPT every week,” he mentioned.

He noted that the scale and speed of adoption in the country underline its growing importance in the global AI ecosystem.

Earlier in the day, Altman announced the launch of the ‘OpenAI for India’ initiative at the summit.

The initiative aims to build infrastructure, strengthen skills and create local partnerships to develop AI solutions tailored for the country.

He said the goal is to build “AI with India, for India, and in India.”

Under this initiative, OpenAI will collaborate with leading Indian partners, starting with the Tata Group, to expand access to AI and unlock its economic and social benefits.

The partnership will focus on building sovereign AI capabilities, accelerating enterprise adoption, investing in workforce upskilling and supporting India’s growing AI ecosystem.

As part of OpenAI’s global Stargate initiative, the company and Tata Group will work together to develop AI-ready data centre capacity in India.

OpenAI will become the first customer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) HyperVault data centre business, starting with 100 megawatts of capacity and potentially scaling up to 1 gigawatt over time.

Altman said India’s strong tech talent base, optimism around AI and government support position the country well to shape the future of democratic AI adoption at scale.

The planned infrastructure will allow OpenAI’s advanced models to operate securely within India, ensuring lower latency and compliance with data residency and security requirements.

--IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The 'India-AI Impact Summit 2026', which commenced on February 16 with a powerful vision, places India's youth at the heart of the nation's artificial intelligence (AI) journey, according to an official statement issued on Thursday.

India has the largest youth population in the world, with over 65 per cent of its population under the age of 35, positioning this demographic powerhouse as an engine of economic momentum.

The summit reflects a shift from passive learning to active participation, redefining employment across sectors, spotlighting new skills, and the urgent need to sync education with industry needs. The focus is on boosting employability, enhancing productivity, and forging seamless bridges from classrooms to AI-driven careers, the statement explained.

Young innovators are driving the agenda at the summit through hands-on platforms such as innovation challenges, startup pitches, and live solution demonstrations. These structured engagements connect skills with market needs and channel India’s youth potential into productive capacity, it observed.

The Summit serves as a catalyst to accelerate job creation in emerging sectors, including Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics, which are projected to generate nearly 2 million jobs by 2030. By blending global insights with youth skilling and job creation, India is cementing the demographic dividend as the cornerstone of its AI strategy and a future-ready workforce.

AI is rapidly emerging as a transformative opportunity for India’s vast talent pool. By reshaping the employment landscape, AI is generating new roles, enhancing productivity, and expanding pathways for inclusive growth. India sees AI as a key lever to expand youth jobs and skills, blending emerging technology with inclusive growth and talent development.

Rising demand for AI skills and jobs is reshaping opportunities for young Indians. Between January 2023 and March 2025, AI-related job postings in South Asia increased from 2.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent of all vacancies, with demand for AI skills growing 75 per cent faster than for non-AI roles.

This shift signals a structural transformation in India’s labour market — one that increasingly rewards digital fluency, advanced technical capability, and interdisciplinary expertise. For India’s youth, AI is a pathway toward skill-intensive, future-ready employment across technology and adjacent sectors, the statement observes.

Recognising AI as a strategic employment driver, the Union Budget 2026–27 reinforced the government’s focus on AI skilling and talent development. The budget prioritised the Orange Economy, which overlaps with AI-driven fields like Animation, Gaming, Digital content, and Immersive media.

It allocated support for the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), Mumbai to establish AI-aligned Content Creator Labs in 15,000 schools and 500 colleges, opening pathways for youth to gain future-ready skills and enter AI-centric job roles. This initiative is projected to generate around 20 lakh new jobs, directly boosting employment prospects for students, creators, and young professionals across India.

The Budget also highlighted AI and emerging technologies as central to shaping jobs and skills across sectors. It proposed an Education to Employment and Enterprise Standing Committee to assess how AI and related tech affect jobs and skill requirements, aiming to bridge education, work and enterprise -demand.

Affordable AI infrastructure and policy support under the IndiaAI Mission are also democratising access to compute, data, and innovation opportunities beyond metropolitan cities.

--IANS

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said that sectors such as healthcare, education, deep research and medical sciences are set to grow rapidly with the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit here, he said AI is no longer just a technology trend but is becoming a key driver of change across industries.

Mittal highlighted how AI is transforming the way companies function and deliver services.

“Areas like healthcare and education will particularly benefit as AI helps improve efficiency, innovation and access,” he said.

Mittal added that for Bharti Group, AI has already become an integral part of its operations.

“The company is using AI to better serve customers, build stronger networks and manage those networks more effectively,” he stated.

“AI is helping improve service quality while also making internal processes smarter and faster,” he added.

He stressed that the impact of AI will not be limited to one or two sectors. From medical research to advanced scientific studies, AI will play a major role in shaping the future.

As companies adopt the technology, it will open up new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Mittal’s remarks come at a time when businesses across the world are increasing investments in AI to stay competitive.

According to the earlier official statement, the expo is hosting over 300 curated exhibition pavilions and live demonstrations, structured across three thematic chakras - People, Planet and Progress.

In addition, it will feature over 600 high-potential startups, many of them building globally relevant and population-scale solutions.

These startups will demonstrate working solutions that are already deployed in real-world settings.

Over 500 sessions will be organised, featuring more than 3250 visionary speakers and panel members.

These sessions will focus on acknowledging the transformative impact of AI across sectors and deliberating on future actions to ensure that AI benefits every global citizen.

--IANS

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Mumbai, Feb 19 (IANS) Shares of NCC Limited tumbled nearly 10 per cent in intra-day trade on Thursday after the company and its step-down subsidiary faced a two-year debarment order from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

The sharp fall dragged the stock to its lowest level in the past one year. The stock slipped 9.85 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to Rs 135 apiece, marking a fresh 52-week low.

The decline came after the company informed exchanges about regulatory action taken against it and its subsidiary.

In an exchange filing, NCC said that OB Infrastructure Limited (OBIL), its step-down subsidiary, along with NCC, has received a debarment order from NHAI for a period of two years.

The order prevents both companies from participating in any tender, bid or request for proposal issued by NHAI.

This includes roles such as concessionaire, contractor, EPC contractor, O&M contractor, O&M agency or consortium member. The restriction is effective from February 17, 2026.

The debarment is linked to a highway project in Uttar Pradesh that was executed by OBIL under a 2006 concession agreement on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) annuity basis.

According to the company, delays in the project were caused by NHAI’s failure to hand over land on time and other alleged breaches of the contract.

NCC said OBIL had initiated arbitration proceedings over the matter and received a favourable award in November 2024.

However, NHAI has challenged the award before the Delhi High Court. The company added that some additional disputes related to the same project are still under arbitration.

OBIL has claimed that the debarment order was issued while arbitration proceedings were ongoing and after the concession period had already ended.

It also alleged that the order was passed without giving it an opportunity to present its case. The company said it plans to challenge the debarment in accordance with the law.

NCC clarified that there is no immediate financial or operational impact on its existing orders and ongoing projects.

However, it admitted that the impact on future tenders cannot be estimated at this stage, as the ban restricts participation in fresh NHAI projects for two years.

--IANS

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Mumbai, Feb 19 (IANS) Gold and silver prices continued to rise for a second consecutive session on Thursday -- amid rise in geopolitical tensions, cautiousness of the US Federal Reserve stand and withdrawal of additional margins on gold and silver futures in domestic market.

The US Defence Department has sent additional weaponry to the Middle East such as warships, air defences and submarines, in preparation for a possible military strike on Iran if negotiations fail, according to multiple reports.

MCX gold April futures gained 0.22 per cent to Rs 1,56,100 per 10 grams on an intra-day basis. Meanwhile, MCX silver March futures gained 0.29 per cent to Rs 2,44,971 per kg.

The MCX and the NSE have withdrawn the additional margin of 3 per cent levied in Gold Futures and 7 per cent levied in Silver Futures in all contracts of all variants, with effect from Thursday. The removal of additional margins is expected to invite higher speculative participation in the market and increase intraday activity, pushing prices higher.

Further, thin liquidity because of Lunar New Year holidays in Mainland China, and several other Asian markets also acted as headwinds on the rally, market participants said.

In international markets, gold prices hovered around $5,000, while dip buying ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes was seen, while mixed economic data kept the US Fed officials' opinion on monetary policy divided, said Manav Modi, commodities analyst, Motilal Oswal Financial services Ltd.

"Safe-haven demand remained supported by escalating friction between US and Iran, particularly concerns around maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz, alongside stalled nuclear negotiations and persistent uncertainty from the Russia–Ukraine conflict," the analyst said.

Fed minutes revealed that some prefer further tightening if inflation stays sticky while others signaled potential easing later in the year. The possibility of higher-for-longer rates lifted the dollar and Treasury yields, capping bullion gains.

"Gold has support at Rs 1,54,400 and Rs 1,52,200 while resistance at Rs 1,56,800 and Rs 1,59,100. MCX silver has support at Rs 2,38,000 and Rs 2,32,800, and resistance is at Rs 2,49,000 and Rs 2,54,400," an analyst said.

Markets remain keen on cues from the upcoming PCE inflation data and US GDP data for clearer policy direction cues.

—IANS

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