Sachin Tendulkar bats for OpenAI; Nvidia’s new shield for AI agents
While cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has teamed up with OpenAI in a multi-year partnership to show how ChatGPT can be used for everyday learning, idea generation, and personal interests; Nvidia has unveiled a security platform that can stop AI agents from going rogue.
Dear Reader,
The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and the RBI on a petition challenging the new MDR on UPI payments above Rs 2,000. The court did not grant an interim stay, meaning the 0.4% MDR on eligible merchant transactions is set to take effect from October 15. Person-to-person payments and transactions covered by exemptions will remain free.
While India’s payments ecosystem weighs the impact of the new UPI pricing, AI companies are grappling with a different challenge: how to keep autonomous AI agents under control. Nvidia has launched new safety tools for AI agents, saying they could have prevented the recent Hugging Face hack. The tools are designed to detect and contain rogue agents before they bypass security controls.
The push to make AI more useful and accessible is also gathering pace in India. OpenAI has partnered with cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar on a multi-year campaign to showcase practical uses of ChatGPT for learning, writing, idea generation, and everyday problem-solving. The company says its user base in India has doubled over the past year, with interactive content and creator collaborations planned as part of the campaign.
The growing AI adoption is also creating opportunities for startups. Flipkart Ventures has backed AI-led startups Alive and Keploy, combining capital with access to its mentorship, engineering expertise and wider ecosystem. Alive uses AI to build and distribute curated lifestyle experiences, while Keploy helps developers automate regression testing using real application traffic.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Inside Ram Sukumar’s AI strategy for Indium
- Natarajan Malupillai on IIT Madras’ new fund
Here’s your trivia for today: Where did the term “spam” originate? (Scroll down for the answer)
Featured
Inside Ram Sukumar’s AI strategy for Indium
Ram Sukumar has rebuilt Indium more than once. From software testing to data and now AI, the entrepreneur is betting that another reinvention could take the company past the $100 million mark and into its next phase.
Key takeaways:
- Sukumar bootstrapped Indium after losing the financial cushion he grew up with, and has since scaled it beyond $100 million in revenue.
- He launched Noah Data in 2013, merged it with Indium in 2018, and later brought in EQT to help the company scale through acquisitions and a stronger leadership team.
- Indium is investing in its LIFTR platform to modernise legacy software, automate testing and accelerate engineering, while making AI skills mandatory across the organisation.
<Funding alert>
Startup: Amaani
Amount: $5 million
Round: Series A
Startup: Balwaan Krishi
Amount: Rs 100 Cr
Round: Series B
Startup
Natarajan Malupillai on IIT Madras’ new fund
For deep-tech founders, the hardest battle usually isn’t cracking a tough engineering problem, says Natarajan Malupillai
IIT Madras Research Park and Unicorn India Ventures have launched a Rs 1,000-crore fund to back early-stage deeptech startups. Natarajan Malupillai, Group CEO of IIT Madras Research Park, says the fund is designed to give founders patient capital and more time to focus on building complex technologies.
Key takeaways:
- The fund is targeting early-stage startups in semiconductors, spacetech, quantum, EVs, batteries, robotics, AI, biotech, and healthtech.
- CEO Malupillai says deeptech founders need longer runways to build complex technologies without being distracted by constant fundraising.
- Malupillai argues India needs to move beyond rote learning and entrance-exam preparation towards hands-on learning and critical thinking to build its next generation of innovators.
News & updates
- Starship launch: SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket on Monday, targeting orbit for the first time. It reached orbit at around 8:15 a.m. local time, prompting cheers from SpaceX employees at the launch.
- Meta AI Push: Meta Platforms has appointed MongoDB’s CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to lead its new offering designed to bring the social media company’s AI tools to businesses.
Where did the term “spam” originate?
Answer: It comes from a 1970 Monty Python sketch featuring repeated chants of “Spam” that drowned out conversation.
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