This Week in Tech India (TWITI) #41 of 2025

It feels like this week there is a lot of news. Not like, one piece of news that really shakes the industry, but a whole bunch of little pieces of news that collectively impact the industry. Like little grains of sand, eh?

There are however three key events that shaped news overall, and I grouped Tech India news accordingly.

Here’s what you need to know to stay informed:

• Some news from Zomato:
  • Zomato has tied up with HDFC Pension to introduce the ‘NPS (National Pension System) Platform Workers Model’ for its delivery partners. This enables the delivery partners “to make small and regular contributions towards a pension fund that will enable them to achieve long-term financial security.” Nice.
  • Zomato is reported to start using riders and delivery bags into ad spaces. More ad revenue, yay. As long as it doesn’t affect the delivery experience.
• Anthropic plans to open its first office in Bengaluru, India in 2026. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, is visiting India this week to meet with public officials and enterprise partners (and possibly the PM). This is a few weeks after OpenAI announced it will open its office in India and hire Indian humans. I’m telling you man, everyone wants a piece of the India AI Pie.

• Here’s a couple of news pieces related to Andhra Pradesh, particularly Vishakapatnam (Vizag):
  • Google will invest $10bn in a new data centre cluster in Vizag. The Raiden Info Tech Data Center project in Vizag involves an investment of ₹87,520 crore ($10 billion) and is expected to create 188,000 jobs (for humans, I hope).
  • Vizag will also be will be one of the landing sites for Meta’s multi-billion-dollar undersea cable project, called Waterworth. This project, spanning 50,000 km, will connect India with the US, Brazil and South Africa. Btw, a lot of you will know this – subsea cables, not satellites, is how 99.9999% of the world’s internet works.
• Tata Communication partners with BSNL to launch a pan-India e-Sim services. This is using Tata Communication’s “Move” platform. BSNL is not the first in India to provide e-Sims, but it is public sector, so that’s…. something. I guess.
• There was a Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai this week, which is largely responsible for a whole bunch of Fintech news. Here’s the most important of them:
  • Pay TM guy unveils the Paytm AI Soundbox, which they claim is “India’s first AI business device for small and medium businesses, helping them operate more efficiently and leverage the power of AI in their everyday operations.” But I’ll admit it does sound cool – it promises to interact with the merchant (not customer, merchant!) in multiple languages and answer questions about business with some insight, more than just announcing total sales or collections. And yes it works as a POS.
  • Zoho also launches a smart POS – with the option of having Zoho Pay integrated. This one did not promise AI, and that’s completely fine. I’m okay with AI giving insight but not being involved in handling my payments, to be honest.
  • Fintech unicorn (and IPO-bound) Pine Labs has unveiled its new UPI Tap & Pay feature, developed in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and HDFC Bank. The new payment solution allows users to make mobile tap transactions of up to ₹5,000 without a PIN, and by the looks of it no QR code required. The company said the system is designed for secure, PIN-free payments and includes cashback and EMI offers built into the platform.
  • NPCI announced that Indians will be able to confirm UPI payments with fingerprints (or Face ID if you’re in the Apple ecosystem). Users will now also have the option to authenticate transactions with fingerprints or facial recognition on their devices, eliminating the need to manually enter the personal identification number (PIN). Good for convenience, I guess.
  • The RBI launched a retail sandbox for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), allowing fintech firms to build and test solutions as part of an ongoing pilot. The RBI’s first retail e-rupee pilot, its version of a CBDC, began on December 1, 2022. If you haven’t heard of it, get ready – total CBDC users in India are about 7 million as on date.
  • Lenskart is bringing direct UPI payments to its upcoming B Camera Smartglasses, allowing users to complete transactions instantly by scanning a QR code — no phone or PIN required. The smartglasses, slated for launch in the coming months, integrate the UPI Circle feature from NPCI, which securely links the device to users’ bank accounts. Payments can be completed using voice commands alone, ensuring each transaction is safe, private, and verified in real time.

• The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited India with a large trade delegation. This is the tech news that may be directly or indirectly a result of this visit:
  • London-based digital finance giant Revolut said on Wednesday it will launch its payment platform in India, as part of a planned global expansion. Revolut will let Indian users make domestic and international payments via its tie-ups with the UPI and Visa, starting with 350,000 waitlisted customers later this year before opening to others.
  • SoftBank-owned Graphcore has announced plans to invest up to $1 billion in India over the next decade. In addition to the funding announcement, the company said it has opened a new AI engineering campus in Bangalore, promising 500 new semiconductor jobs in the region, including roles in silicon logical design, physical design, verification, characterization, and bring-up. Founded in Bristol in 2016, Graphcore makes AI accelerators called Intelligent Processing Units (IPUs), which have been marketed as an alternative to GPUs produced by Nvidia.
  • Tide, the UK’s leading business management platform, on Friday announced that it is deepening its long-term commitment to India with a £500 million (₹6,000 crore) investment over the next five years, starting 2026.
  • TCS announced the launch of an artificial intelligence (AI) experience zone, along with a design studio, in London, United Kingdom, as part of its restructuring efforts, according to an exchange filing. The company also disclose that the IT major plans to create 5,000 new jobs across Britain over the next three years as the investment effort seeks to support talent development and employment. This is after mass layoffs in India. Poda, TCS.
  • Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei was part of this delegation, and reaffirmed that CMF will be spun off and will be based in India.

• There’s also the India Mobile Congress (which claims it’s Aisa’s largest tech event) that’s just wrapping up today in Delhi, here’s the biggest news:
  • PM Modi remarked that 1GB of data today is cheaper than a cup of tea.
  • MediaTek, the Taiwanese chip making giant, gave a few demos and expressed that it is open to getting chips manufactured in India.
  • Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia pledged a rapid rollout of Satellite Communications (SATCOM) services in India, signalling the government’s commitment to keeping pace with global developments.
  • Reliance Jio unveiled a new Safety-First feature on its JioBharat phones at the India Mobile Congress 2025, aiming to keep Indian families connected, secure, and worry-free. The feature, designed for affordability and simplicity, brings smart location tracking, call and message control, and real-time device monitoring to households across the country. “With Safety-First, families can stay informed about the whereabouts of children, elderly parents, and dependents through real-time location tracking, manage calls and messages by blocking unknown numbers and limiting distractions, monitor phone health including battery life and network strength for uninterrupted connectivity, and stay reliably connected thanks to up to seven days of battery backup.”
• BluSmart, the now defunct electric taxi company in Bangalore, put out a social media post telling social media users to… stop messaging them. They said that the founders committed fraud, and sadly employees haven’t been paid for a few months, so customers would’t find it useful to message them asking for a refund. Sadness. Electric sadness.
• Delhi Government announced that citizens will be able to apply for services like birth and cast certificates via WhatsApp. I wish they use Arattai. This week Arattai rolled out end to end encryption, one less reason for Indians to prefer WhatsApp over Arattai.
• Tinder has rolled out Face Check in India, a new feature that uses video selfies to verify users, reduce fake profiles to enhance safety for those seeking connections on the app. Because no one wants to get catfished.
• Amit Shah announces on X that he’s switched over to Zoho Mail, and has given out his Zoho Mail email ID to the public. It’s okay for him but you please don’t put out your personal email ID in the public domain. Please.

• The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved a new policy granting women one day of paid leave each month during menstruation, ie, 12 paid menstrual leave days per year, applicable across government offices, private sector firms, garment factories, IT companies, and MNCs. This does raise privacy concerns but I hope overall it’s good news – feminists need to win more. I wonder how Narayan Murthy feels about this?

Speaking of Narayan Murthy, his son-in-law and former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will join Microsoft and Anthropic as a senior advisor. All this while remaining an MP, and will remaining the son-in-law of Infosys’ chairman. Clear conflict of interest, but who cares so long as your father-in-law wants all Indians to work 90 hours a week, eh?

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