Nvidia Strikes Deals with Reliance, Tata in Deepening India AI Bet

A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
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Nvidia Strikes Deals with Reliance, Tata in Deepening India AI Bet

A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)

US chip firm Nvidia on Friday announced AI partnerships with Indian conglomerates Reliance Industries and Tata Group to develop cloud infrastructure and language models, as well as generative applications.

The deals with two of India's largest business houses will help the US chip firm deepen inroads to the emerging AI ecosystem of the South Asian nation, just as it faces roadblocks in certain chip exports to China and some other countries due to US restrictions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this week met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss India's potential in the AI sector, just ahead of the G20 meet in New Delhi where delegates including US President Joe Biden are attending.

In the Reliance partnership, Nvidia will provide the computing power required for building a cloud AI infrastructure platform, while Reliance unit Jio will manage and maintain the infrastructure and oversee customer engagement.

"Reliance will create AI applications and services for their 450 million Jio (telecom) customers and provide energy-efficient AI infrastructure to scientists, developers and startups across India," Nvidia said.

The Nvidia partnership will be used by India's No.1 software services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, to build and process generative AI apps and a supercomputer, the companies said in a statement. TCS will also upskill its 600,000-strong workforce by leveraging the partnership.

The deal will also catalyze the AI-led transformation across Tata Group companies that range from manufacturing to consumer businesses, the statement added.

Nvidia globally has a near-monopoly on the computing systems used to power services like ChatGPT, OpenAI's blockbuster generative AI chatbot. The AI powering such apps is known as a large language model because it takes in a text prompt and from that writes a human-like response.

Reliance's Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person, has previously talked up the need of "digital infrastructure in India that can handle AI's immense computational demands".

The partnership will give Reliance access to the latest version of Nvidia's Grace Hopper Superchip, its AI chips that are optimized to perform AI inference functions that effectively power apps like ChatGPT.

Reliance said the new AI infrastructure will speed up a range of India's key AI projects, including chatbots, drug discovery, and climate research.

Neil Shah, a partner at Counterpoint Research, said the AI move is critical for Jio to "make sense" of the data it has from millions of users, and become a tech company providing services beyond telecom.

"The AI infra will enable it to provide accurate recommendations and cross sell products and services across its giant network of clients in retail, telecom, and financial space," he said.

Reuters on Friday exclusively reported that Reliance is also considering a foray into semiconductor manufacturing in India.



US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
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US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)

The Justice Department late Friday filed its response to TikTok's civil suit aimed at derailing a law that would force the app to be sold or face a US ban.

TikTok's suit in a Washington federal court argues that the law violates First Amendment rights of free speech.

The US response counters that the law addresses national security concerns, not speech, and that TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is not able to claim First Amendment rights here.

The filing details concerns that ByteDance could, and would, comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or yield to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior justice department officials said in a briefing.

"The goal of this law is to ensure that young people, old people and everyone in between is able to use the platform in a safe manner," a senior justice department official said.

"And to use it in a way confident that their data is not ultimately going back to the Chinese government and what they're watching is not being directed by or censored by the Chinese government."

The response argues that the law's focus on foreign ownership of TikTok takes it out of the realm of the First Amendment.

US intelligence agencies are concerned that China can "weaponize" mobile apps, justice department officials said.

"It's clear that the Chinese government has for years been pursuing large, structured datasets of Americans through all sorts of manner, including malicious cyber activity; including efforts to buy that data from data brokers and others, and including efforts to build sophisticated AI models that can utilize that data," a senior justice department official said.

TikTok has said the demanded divestiture is "simply not possible" -- and not on the timeline required.

The bill signed by President Joe Biden early this year set a mid-January 2025 deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a US ban.

The White House can extend the deadline by 90 days.

"For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide," said the suit by TikTok and ByteDance.

- TikTok shutdown? -

ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid a ban.

"There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025," the lawsuit said, "silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere."

TikTok first found itself in the crosshairs of former president Donald Trump's administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

That effort got bogged down in the courts when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's attempt, saying the reasons for banning the app were likely overstated and that free speech rights were in jeopardy.

The new effort signed by Biden was designed to overcome the same legal headaches, and some experts believe the US Supreme Court could be open to allowing national security considerations to outweigh free speech protection.

"We view the statute as a game changer from the arguments that were in play back in 2020," a senior justice department official said.

There are serious doubts that any buyer could emerge to purchase TikTok even if ByteDance would agree to the request.

Big tech's usual suspects, such as Facebook parent Meta or YouTube's Google, will likely be barred from snapping up TikTok over antitrust concerns, and others could not afford one of the world's most successful apps used by about 170 million people in the United States alone.