AI infrastructure arms race heats up; Helping women return to public life after breast cancer

The markets were jubilant in the wake of the US-India trade deal. Farmer unions, however, have their reservations.

One of India’s largest farmer groups will be holding a nationwide protest this week, on mounting concerns that India has given in to too many agricultural concessions under the interim trade deal.

The government has defended the deal, saying that by excluding imports of grains such as rice, wheat, corn and dairy products, farmers’ interests have been protected. Meanwhile, farmers growing basmati rice, fruit, spices, coffee and tea would gain duty-free access to the US markets.

ICYMI: A breakdown of the biggest winners, losers, and the consequences for India’s agricultural sector from the US-India trade pact. 

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency markets are seeing a lull in their rollercoaster rally from last week. The cryptocurrency fell around 2% to $69,037 at around 7:20 a.m. in New York—relatively tamer than last week’s volatile moves. 

Lastly, Elon Musk has shifted his ambitions of building a civilisation on Mars to building a “self‑growing city” on the moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years.

According to media reports, SpaceX is shelving a trip to Mars, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• AI infrastructure arms race heats up
• Helping women return to public life after breast cancer
• Java Capital’s new Rs 400 Cr deeptech fund

Here’s your trivia for today: What was the first NASA Mars rover named?

Insight

AI infra arms race heats up

Innovation in Big Tech is no longer constrained solely by talent or algorithms, but by the number of gigawatts a firm can secure and the volume of advanced chips it can deploy.

The scale of this financial reallocation is striking. Based on projections for the 2026 fiscal year, Amazon is expected to lead the group with around $200 billion in capital expenditure, followed by Alphabet at roughly $180 billion, Microsoft at about $140 billion, and Meta at close to $125 billion. The combined capex of these firms is expected to exceed $600 billion.

Growth:

• To contain costs and improve efficiency, the major players are increasingly moving away from total reliance on third-party hardware suppliers. They are pursuing what analysts describe as ‘silicon sovereignty’, the in-house design of custom AI accelerators.
• This vertical integration allows companies to optimise the entire technology stack, from silicon through systems to software, improving performance while lowering total cost of ownership.
• Amazon has said its custom chips, Trainium and Graviton, have reached a combined annual revenue run-rate of more than $10 billion, while Meta is expanding its MTIA silicon programme to support ranking and recommendation systems. Microsoft has also launched Maia 200, its second in-house AI accelerator.

Funding Alert

Startup: Radiance Renewables

Amount: $100M

Round: Equity

Startup: Pandorum Technologies

Amount: $18M

Round: Series B

Startup: Elevate Now

Amount: Rs 18 Cr

Round: Seed

Inspiration

Helping women return to public life after breast cancer

Jayashree Ratan has spent years building Saaisha India Foundation that makes hand-knitted prostheses to help women reclaim comfort, confidence and choice after mastectomy.

For many women, a mastectomy is not only a medical intervention but a rupture in how they inhabit their bodies and move through public life. The loss of a breast can unsettle balance, posture and clothing, but it also reshapes confidence amid gendered cultural expectations.

Reclaiming life:

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in India, accounting for roughly a quarter of all female cancer cases, and survival varies significantly depending on stage at diagnosis.
• Saaisha India Foundation is a volunteer-led charitable trust started in 2018. It began with four women sitting together to make knitted knockers (a term for breast prostheses), and has since grown into a network of 400+ women volunteers spanning multiple Indian cities.
• Today, under Saaisha, 150 volunteers are actively making prostheses at any given time. Together, they have supported over 14,000 women—distributing nearly 28,000 knitted prostheses—along with thousands of caps for children undergoing cancer treatment.

Venture capital

Java Capital’s new deeptech fund

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Java Capital on Monday launched its third fund, with a target corpus of Rs 400 crore, including a greenshoe option of Rs 150 crore, as the Bengaluru-based venture firm doubles down on early-stage deeptech investments.

The new vehicle will focus on seed-stage companies in sectors, including semiconductors, spacetech and aerospace, cybersecurity and defence technologies.

News & updates

• AI borrowing: Alphabet Inc. is looking to raise about $15 billion from a US high-grade dollar bond sale, adding to a borrowing spree by companies at the forefront of the artificial intelligence investment boom. Google’s parent company is selling bonds in as many as seven parts. 
• Crackdown: EU competition regulators have threatened to stop Meta Platforms from blocking artificial intelligence rivals from its WhatsApp messaging service while it investigates suspected abuse of a dominant position by the U.S. tech giant.
• Funding: Databricks said Monday it has raised $5 billion in funding and $2 billion in new debt capacity at a $134 billion valuation. The data analytics software company also said that its annualised revenue exceeded $5.4 billion for the January quarter, up 65% year over year.

What was the first NASA Mars rover named?

Answer: Sojourner

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