India’s AI Ambition Meets Analog Limits

By Govindraj Ethiraj

French President Emmanuel Macron was spotted jogging along Mumbai’s Marine Drive on Tuesday morning, cutting an almost solitary figure against the backdrop of the Arabian Sea.

There is perhaps some wisdom in a prominent head of state pacing himself, focusing on acclimatisation rather than speed.

It is a lesson the global markets—and the doom-mongers predicting the immediate evaporation of India’s IT services sector—might do well to heed.

For the past week, a furious debate has raged over whether the latest generative AI tools mark the extinction event for the outsourcing giants that built modern Bangalore.

But just as the markets began to stop hyperventilating, Infosys led a smart counteroffensive.

By announcing a partnership with Anthropic—the giant-killer of the LLM world—Infosys signaled that it intends to be the jockey, not the horse, in this new race.

The Pivot to ‘Build’

Chairman Nandan Nilekani’s presentation at Infosys AI Day 2026 offered the intellectual ballast for this survival strategy.

His thesis is sharp: huge enterprises currently sink 60% to 80% of their IT budgets merely into keeping the lights on. This "technical debt" can no longer be deferred.

Nilekani’s argument is that AI flips the script on the "Build vs. Buy" dynamic.

Because AI has democratised and simplified coding, the advantage is shifting back toward building custom solutions over buying rigid, off-the-shelf software. If the future is bespoke, then the world still needs tailors. Infosys argues it is that tailor.

The Anthropic partnership hits the right notes because it acknowledges a fundamental reality: to use AI smartly, you still need humans in the loop.

Do you need armies of them writing basic code? Perhaps not. But the sector isn't getting wiped out; it is getting promoted to a higher value chain.

To misquote Vladimir Lenin, there are weeks where decades happen. The last week in the AI sector felt like a decade, but the IT majors have survived the initial shockwave.

The Analog Reality Check

However, while the corporate boardrooms in Bangalore are rapidly adapting, the state machinery in New Delhi provided a jarring counter-narrative.

The "India AI Summit" in the capital exposed the widening chasm between India’s digital aspirations and its physical capacity.

When bureaucratic calcification collides with youthful aspiration, the results are rarely pretty.

In Delhi, this manifested as thousands of young tech enthusiasts stewing in long lines waiting to enter the Bharat Mandapam or the old Pragati Maidan complex, complaining of mismanagement.

In a twist of irony that would be funny if it weren't so damaging, attendees at a summit celebrating India's digital prowess were reportedly forced to pay cash for food.

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw incidentally on Tuesday apologised for the widespread disruptions on the first day of the India AI Impact Summit 2026.

But one culprit behind the frustrations, as usual, was the "VIP culture" that plagues Indian logistics.

The entire event management apparatus appeared to pivot toward servicing a single visiting dignitary, leaving thousands of young delegates—the actual future of the country—stranded outside.

The Infrastructure Deficit

The juxtaposition is stark. On one hand, there were high-level policy sessions discussing deep tech funding, healthcare AI, and sovereign models—discussions that are genuinely insightful and necessary.

On the other, there were logistical failures that suggest India lacks the soft infrastructure to host the very global audience it seeks to lead.

Delhi possesses the best convention infrastructure in the country, yet even the capital has its limits.

Mixing policy wonks with a massive product exhibition crowd at this scale was a tactical error, but the strategic failure lies in the state’s inability to match the seamlessness of its digital payments with the seamlessness of its queues.

Nilekani talks about modernising legacy systems in software.

The mess at the India AI Summit suggests the government needs to modernise its legacy systems of event management and VIP protocol.

Until then, India remains a paradox: capable of partnering with the world's most advanced AI labs, but struggling to get people through a door.

Like Macron on Marine Drive, the Indian tech story is a long run. But you can't finish the marathon if you trip over your own shoelaces at the starting line.

Why Banks Need Blockchain To Get Their Records In Order

By Vishwas Ved

What?

Last week, Invincible Ocean, an Indian technology company that specialises in AI and blockchain infrastructure, launched a hybrid blockchain platform for banks, financial institutions, and government workflows.

The platform’s job is to record actions such as transactions, approvals, changes, and confirmations in the right sequence in a form that cannot be manipulated later without anyone noticing.

At first glance, it looks like a feature every core banking system in would already have. And the fact is that they do, but they don’t always record the activities in a single agreed sequence across systems.

Why?

There is another layer to the problem.

In current databases, the latest value replaces a previous entry. The earlier values still exist, but only inside system logs that someone has to retrieve separately.

For example, if a third-party transfer limit is changed more than once, each change appears in order. But the main screen only shows the current limit, and the past revisions need to be pulled from backend files.

However, with Invincible Ocean’s platform, which keeps a tamper-evident ledger, every modification and update by the user or the institution is recorded in the right sequence.

So when a case is reviewed, it reduces the need to search different systems and piece together what happened first and what followed. The staff can see the steps already arranged in order.

This becomes convenient especially when an account has moved through several teams.

This series is brought to you in partnership with Algorand India.

$4,986

That’s how much gold’s price dropped to, per ounce. It’s a week-long low, because traders pulled back as markets awaited clearer cues on geopolitics and Federal Reserve policy, and the US dollar strengthened, making non-dollar bullion more expensive. 

Stronger dollar demand and thin trading due to Asian holidays reduced buying interest and pressured prices lower.

Fast Facts: Moreover, traders also paused safe-haven buying while they watched US-Iran nuclear talks.

Analysts believe gold may stabilise above $5,000 and even extend gains later in the year amid geopolitical uncertainties, but short-term pressure outweighed buying on Tuesday.

The Lead: Back at home, January saw a record-rise in Indians investing in gold–which contributed to India’s widening trade deficit.

India’s merchandise trade deficit widened sharply to $34.68 billion in January as gold and silver imports surged, with gold import values jumping more than threefold year-on-year. 

Pivot: Despite global volatility, Indian buyers have continued to treat gold as a store of value, lifting import volumes and widening the trade deficit. Analysts say sustained inflows could keep India’s current account under pressure unless gold demand cools in the coming months.

The Pioneer presents India Finance & Innovation Forum 2026 convenes policymakers, regulators, financial institutions and industry leaders to examine India’s evolving financial architecture. Over three days, senior decision-makers will explore fiscal and monetary priorities, capital markets, digital finance and innovation-led growth through focused dialogue, networking and collaborative sessions on what’s changing, what works and what comes next.

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