The Indian technology landscape is being reshaped by major advancements in AI capabilities and connectivity infrastructure. Today, attention is focused on significant commitments by global tech giants to build India-specific platforms and the surging consumer preference for premium technology.

1. Google Expands AI Capacity for Indian Developers

Google Cloud has announced a major expansion of its local AI hardware capacity in India, emphasizing the development of “Sovereign AI”—technology built by Indians, for Indians.

• Gemini Hypercomputer: Google is deploying the latest Trillium TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) and its AI Hypercomputer architecture to help businesses and the public sector train and deploy their advanced Gemini AI models within the country. This move helps organizations meet strict data residency and sovereignty requirements.
• Local Context: The company is focusing on making AI understand India’s unique cultural and linguistic context, specifically through a collaboration with IIT Madras’s AI4Bharat center to support Indic Arena. This open platform will allow developers to evaluate and benchmark AI models on multilingual Indian datasets, ensuring better performance across the country’s many languages.
• Startup Skilling: In a related initiative, Google for Startups launched “Startup School: Prompt to Prototype”—a two-week program designed to enable Indian entrepreneurs to build AI-powered products using Google’s tools without relying on traditional coding expertise.

2. Starlink Secures First State Partnership in Maharashtra

After a period of regulatory negotiations, Elon Musk’s Starlink has achieved a critical breakthrough in its efforts to launch satellite internet services in India.

• Maharashtra Partnership: The Maharashtra government has become the first Indian state to formally partner with Starlink, signing a Letter of Intent (LoI) to deploy the satellite-based internet services.
• Digital Inclusion: The initial focus of the collaboration will be on bridging the digital divide in remote and underserved districts like Gadchiroli and Nandurbar, promising high-speed connectivity for education, healthcare, and digital governance.
• Expected Rollout: The partnership marks a new phase in India’s digital infrastructure push, with a commercial rollout expected in early 2026, pending final regulatory and spectrum allocation clearances.

3. Smartphone Market Hits 5-Year High on Premium Demand

The Indian smartphone market recorded a major resurgence in the third quarter of 2025, reaching a five-year high in unit shipments.

• Premium Segment Growth: The growth was overwhelmingly led by the premium segment (phones priced above US$600), which saw growth exceeding 53% year-over-year.
• Apple’s Record Quarter: Apple recorded its highest-ever quarterly shipments in India, securing the fourth position in overall market share for the first time. The new iPhone 17 and existing iPhone 16 models fueled this momentum, highlighting India’s increasing appetite for high-value devices.
• 5G Dominance: The report also underlined the dominance of 5G devices, which now account for 89% of total shipments, with affordable 5G phones priced between ₹6,000 and ₹10,000 showing phenomenal growth.

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