One Thing Today in Tech

Apple is asking suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, as it attempts to step up the diversification of its global supply chain that is currently almost entirely dependent on China, Nikkei reports. Wipro has asked staff to turn up for work at the office at least three times a week, Business Standard reports. NetSPI, with $410 million from KKR, plans to set up a base in India.

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Apple is asking suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, as it attempts to step up the diversification of its global supply chain that is currently almost entirely dependent on China.

Apple’s top contract manufacturers are already expanding their production of iPhones, iPads, and MacBook series laptops in India and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament voted to confirm an earlier agreement to standardise the USB type C charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras by 2024 – a move that is likely to affect Apple the most, whose iPhones use the company’s proprietary lightning connector, The Guardian reports.

Wipro has asked employees to be in the office at least three days a week, joining larger rival TCS in getting staff to return to the office, Business Standard reports.

India’s top IT services companies are seeking to get staff to spend more time in the office as concerns mount over moonlighting, high staff churn, and the global economic slowdown.

In an e-mail to its employees, the Bangalore-based company said “Starting October 10, Wipro’s office will be open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays. We will not be open on Wednesdays,” according to Business Standard.

“We encourage you to work from the office on at least three of these four days,” the email reads.

Last month, TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, installed a mandatory rostering system to ensure that employees worked from the office at least three days a week, according to Business Standard.

As concerns about the trustworthiness and ethical use of AI rise with its growing capabilities, the US government, this week, released a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, following the EU and joining a growing international movement to counter the impact of AI on human rights and values.

The blueprint outlines five principles that should guide the design, use and deployment of automated systems, VentureBeat reports.

NetSPI, a provider of enterprise penetration testing and attack surface management technologies, yesterday announced that private equity firm KKR is increasing its investment in the company with $410 million in new funding.

This investment will help NetSPI deepen and expand its products, and establish strong teams in Canada, EMEA, and India, the Minneapolis-based company said in a press release.

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Prosus, the Dutch-listed global consumer and technology investor, has terminated its agreement to buy India’s BillDesk, ending a deal worth $4.7 billion. Google yesterday announced a list of 20 startups with women founders or co-founders for the first batch of an accelerator programme in India, specifically aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs. And Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist is this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine.

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Prosus, the Dutch-listed global consumer and technology investor, has terminated its agreement to buy India’s BillDesk, ending a deal worth $4.7 billion.

Prosus, controlled by South African media and consumer internet company Naspers, had announced the deal in August last year, that an agreement had been reached between PayU Payments Private Limited, a subsidiary, and the shareholders of the Indian digital payments provider BillDesk.

Closing of the transaction was subject to the fulfilment of various conditions precedent, including approval by the Competition Commission of India. PayU secured CCI approval on Sep. 5, this year. However, “certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the Sep. 30 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically,” Prosus said in a statement on its website.

Google yesterday announced a list of 20 startups with women founders or co-founders for the first batch of an accelerator programme in India, specifically aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs.

The programme will place special emphasis on areas that “for a variety of social reasons and low representation, prove challenging for female founders,” Google said in a blog post yesterday.

Accenture has completed the acquisition of a training and consulting centre of excellence from Stellantis, the world’s fifth biggest automaker. The centre is called World Class Manufacturing Training & Consulting. It supports process optimization in manufacturing and the supply chain.

The deal was announced on Sep. 13 and financial terms are not public.

Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2022, the Nobel Foundation announced on its website yesterday. 

The 67-year-old scientist was selected “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution,” the foundation said in the announcement.

Pääbo’s work includes a discovery that proved modern humans share DNA with extinct relatives Neanderthals and a previously unknown hominin, which was named Denisova. The Swedish scientist provided key insights into our immune system and what makes us unique compared with our extinct cousins, the Nobel Prize committee said, India Today reports.

Pääbo is the son of Sune Bergstrom, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1982.

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Reliance Jio will launch a budget laptop, called JioBook, priced at Rs. 15,000 (about $184) with an embedded 4G sim card, Reuters reports. The Indian conglomerate has partnered with Qualcomm and Microsoft for this project. Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off the latest version of the company’s humanoid robot, named Optimus, last week. And Tulsi Tanti, an Indian entrepreneur best known for his wind energy company Suzlon Energy, passed away on Saturday, Business Standard reports.

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Reliance Jio will launch a budget laptop priced at Rs. 15,000 ($184) with an embedded 4G sim card, Reuters reports, citing two sources aware of the plan. Reliance Jio already sells one of the most affordable Android smartphones in India, in collaboration with Google.

Reliance has partnered with mobile chip leader Qualcomm and Microsoft for the laptop, to be called JioBook, with the former powering its computing chips based on technology from the UK semiconductor company Arm, and Microsoft, whose Windows software runs on the biggest share of computers worldwide, providing support for some apps, according to Reuters.

Telegram has cut the monthly subscription fee for its premium tier by more than half in India, TechCrunch reports. The monthly subscription now costs Rs. 179 ($2.2), compared with Rs. 469 earlier. The app’s monthly subscription, called Telegram Premium, costs between $4.99 and $6 in other markets.

HFCL, a telecom equipment maker, has launched a 5G lab-as-a-service, offering an automated test environment to enterprise customers as well as academia and the government sector.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a prototype of a humanoid robot, named Optimus that shares some AI software and sensors with the Autopilot driver assistance features found on the company’s popular electric cars, The Verge reports.

Musk predicted it could hit a price of "probably less than $20,000.”

Tulsi Tanti, an Indian entrepreneur best known for his wind energy company Suzlon Energy, died on Saturday evening in Pune due to cardiac arrest, Business Standard reports. He was 64.

Tanti, who studied commerce at Gujarat University, started as a textile trader. He diversified into renewable energy after rising electricity costs hit his main business. In 1995, Tanti started a wind power venture and later listed Suzlon, according to Business Standard.

“Tulsi Tanti was a pioneering business leader who contributed to India’s economic progress and strengthened our nation’s efforts to further sustainable development,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.

For his efforts to fight climate change, Tanti received several awards, including ‘Champion of the Earth’ by the United Nations, ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 2006’ by Ernst & Young, and ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME magazine, according to Business Standard.

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Apple is gearing up to make India and Vietnam global manufacturing hubs for its products, with India contributing 25 percent of all iPhones by 2025, according to analysts at JP Morgan, TechCrunch reports. Wipro terminated the services of 300 staff members who were found to be working for its competitors while still being on the company’s payroll, Economic Times reports. And KPIT Technologies takes a big stride in software-defined vehicles with a German acquisition. 

Apple is gearing up to make India and Vietnam global manufacturing hubs for its products, according to analysts at JP Morgan, TechCrunch reports.

In a report to clients Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts estimate Apple will move 5 percent of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022 and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25 percent of all iPhones by 2025.

Vietnam will contribute 20 percent of all iPad and Apple Watch production, 5 percent of MacBook and 65 percent of AirPods by 2025, the report said, which was reviewed by TechCrunch.

Wipro terminated the services of 300 staff members who were found to be working for its competitors while still being on the company’s payroll, Executive Chairman Rishad Premji said on Wednesday, Economic Times reports.

"It is very simple. It is an act of integrity violation. We terminated the services of those people,” Premji said, in reply to a question from ET on the side lines of the 49th All India Management Association’s convention in New Delhi.

India’s cabinet of ministers, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday unanimously approved modifications in the programme for development of semiconductors and display manufacturing ecosystem in India, paving the way for providing fiscal support of 50 percent of project costs for all technology nodes under the government’s scheme for setting up of semiconductor fabs in India.

Based on discussions with potential investors, it is expected that work on setting up of the first semiconductor facility will commence soon, according to the statement.

KPIT Technologies, a software integration partner for the automotive and mobility industry in Pune, has acquired Germany’s Technica Engineering that will add significant softwared-defined vehicle capabilities to the Mumbai-listed company.

Under the terms of the all-cash deal, KPIT will pay 80 million euros ($78.5 million) over the next six months and an additional maximum of 30 million euros over the following two and half years, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Technica Engineering specializes in production-ready system prototyping, automotive ethernet products, and tools for validation.

The Munich-headquartered company has a presence in Spain, Tunisia, and the US, with a team of about 600 engineers. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of October.

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KKR, a global investment firm, and Hero Future Energies, the renewable energy arm of the Hero Group, yesterday announced the signing of definitive agreements under which KKR and the Hero Group will invest $450 million in the Company. OneWeb, the Bharti Enterprises-backed UK company building a LEO satellite constellation, yesterday announced the arrival of 36 satellites at an ISRO launch facility. And Nandan Nilekani says offline UPI can touch half a billion people

European customers of India’s IT services providers in multiple sectors are taking longer to finalise outsourcing contracts because of the energy crisis in the region and the global economic slowdown, Economic Times reports. Starlink now covers every continent, billionaire Elon Musk, who is building the LEO satellite constellation-based internet service, said in a tweet yesterday. And Ola has fired another 200 staff, ET reports

Adobe shares fell 17 percent yesterday, its biggest fall in 12 years, after it said it will buy design software rival Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock, CNBC reports. Investors are concerned that Adobe is paying too much, according to CNBC. DotPe, a payments service provider and commerce platform backed by Google, has raised about $54.5 million in a new funding round led by Temasek, Inc42 reports.

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Adobe shares fell 17 percent yesterday, its biggest fall in 12 years, after it said it will buy design software rival Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock, CNBC reports. Investors are concerned that Adobe is paying too much, according to CNBC.

Figma, founded in 2012, creates cloud-based design software that allows teams to collaborate in real-time, directly competing with Adobe’s XD program.

“Adobe’s greatness has been rooted in our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting-edge technologies through organic innovation and inorganic acquisitions,” said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”

A Microsoft Outlook bug sends users to 1930 if they try to look for dates beyond December 31, 2029, The Register reports, citing a cyber security expert who spotted the glitch first and wrote about it on LinkedIn.

The application won't let users navigate to a date after December 31, 2029, using the date field [Ctrl + G] and abbreviating the year. If they key in the 01/01/30, Outlook takes them back to 1930, according to The Register, which has replicated it on a desktop-bound Office 365 Outlook app linked to an online account, the tech site reports.

DotPe, a payments service provider and commerce platform backed by Google, has raised about $54.5 million in a new funding round led by Temasek, Inc42 reports. The round also saw participation from PayU, Japan’s MUFG Bank, Naya Global Investments, and Info Edge Ventures.

The Gurugram venture had previously raised $27.5 million in its Series A round, which was led by Google.

DotPe was founded in 2020 by Anurag Gupta, Gyanesh Sharma and Shailaz Nag. It provides omnichannel access to single-point stores, expanding its target audience from being hyper-local to pan-India. It has various partnerships for deliveries, and also with payment vendors such as Google Pay, Paytm, and PhonePe, to support higher-order volumes.

Ximkart, a cross-border raw material sourcing startup, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Matrix Partners India, with participation from Multiply Ventures, Better Capital and Citius Ventures and various angel investors, the company said yesterday in a press release.

Ximkart was founded in 2022 by Sharan Urubail and Ankush Mittal. The entrepreneurs aim to make importing raw materials easy by providing better discovery, quality, transparency, and accountability and eliminating multiple middlemen in the supply chain.

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By fiscal year 2026, at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple’s global iPhone shipments could be made in India, Inc42 reports, citing a report by Business Standard that is behind a paywall. Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup, yesterday, reported losses of Rs. 4,589 crore for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2021, which is close to a 20-fold increase over the Rs. 231.69 crore adjusted loss for the previous fiscal year, Moneycontrol reports. And SoftBank Group could be planning another Vision Fund, Wall Street Journal reports.

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Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup, yesterday, reported losses of Rs. 4,589 crore for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2021, which is close to a 20-fold increase over the Rs. 231.69 crore losses for the previous fiscal year, Moneycontrol reports.

The company's revenue for FY21 fell 3 percent year on year to Rs. 2,428 crore on a consolidated basis, down from Rs. 2,511 crore the previous year, according to Moneycontrol.

By the fiscal year 2026, at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple’s global iPhone shipments could be made in India, Inc42 reports, citing a report by Business Standard on Sep. 12 that is behind a paywall.

Apple has been stepping up efforts to boost production in India to reduce its dependence on China, where currently almost all its iPhones are made.

According to numbers submitted to the government by Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, India might account for at least 12 percent of the free-on-board value of Apple iPhones manufactured by its vendors worldwide. Free-on-board value typically refers to the cost of the goods being shipped including transportation to specific destinations, insurance, loading and unloading and so on.

The total value of iPhones sold worldwide could reach $250 billion in FY26 and the total free-on-board of iPhones made in India would be around 12 percent of that, according to the Business Standard repot, as cited by Inc42.

SoftBank Group, one of the world’s biggest investors in tech startups, is considering the launch of a new giant fund even though its first and second Vision Funds have been hit with big losses owing to the global tech route, Wall Street Journal reports.

The Tokyo-based tech conglomerate, by far the world’s largest startup investor in recent years, would likely use its own cash for what would be the third SoftBank Vision Fund if it moves ahead with the plan, according to the Journal.

Sigmoid, a data engineering, analytics and AI solutions company in Silicon Valley, has closed $12 million in Series B funding, in a mix of primary and secondary investments from Sequoia Capital India.

Founded in 2013 by IIT alumni Lokesh Anand, Mayur Rustagi and Rahul Kumar Singh, Sigmoid has a team of about 500 data professionals, who offer deep expertise in data engineering, cloud data modernization, artificial intelligence, and DataOps, according to the release.

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India’s finance ministry has formed an expert panel, led by former SEBI boss M Damodaran, to suggest ways to increase the inflow of venture capital and private equity investments into the country. Apple plans to sell more ads. And data analytics cloud company Thoughtspot plans to invest $150 million in expanding its Indian operations over the next five years.

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India’s finance ministry has formed an expert panel to suggest ways to increase the inflow of venture capital and private equity investments into the country, Inc42 reports.

The six-member committee – first announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in February -- will be headed by Meleveetil Damadoran, former chairman of India’s capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board, according to an order by the ministry dated September 9, Inc42 reports.

The expert committee will also suggest “forward-looking measures and future-ready regulatory practices” to the government, studying global best practices in the investment space, to boost investments into startups and sunrise sectors, according to Inc42.

Apple – which has been stepping up its own ad business in recent times – plans to release new ad placements as soon as the holiday season, according to a message sent to developers on Tuesday inviting them to an online session to encourage them to buy ads, CNBC reports.

The new spots represent a significant expansion in Apple’s advertising inventory, which is focused on its App Store. In recent years, Apple’s advertising inventory has been limited to one unit in the Search tab on the App Store and one on the search results page, according to CNBC.

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan estimated in July that Apple could generate $5 billion of advertising revenue from Apple Search Ads alone in 2022, according to CNBC.

ThoughtSpot, an analytics cloud provider, plans to invest $150 million in its operations in India over the next five years, the US company said in a press release yesterday.

ThoughtSpot, founded by Indian American entrepreneurs Ajeet Singh and Amit Prakash, also opened a new office in Trivandrum, the company’s third R&D centre in India. The new investment will go towards continued product innovation to support customers to take greater advantage of data.

NeuroPixel.AI has raised $825,000 in a seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest angel investment platforms. Other investors in the round include Entrepreneur First, Huddle, Dexter Angels, and Rishaad Currimjee.

Flipkart, Walmart’s Indian ecommerce business, has invested about $300,000 in the venture’s pre-series-A round, Inc42 reported yesterday. Two weeks ago, Flipkart had said it had picked six startups – including NeuroPixel – among the first set of investments from its new $100 million venture arm.

NeuroPixel was founded in late 2020 by Arvind Nair and Amritendu Mukherjee, originating at Entrepreneur First. The vision for the company is to solve challenging problems at the intersection of AI and E-Commerce which promises to be an action-packed space over the next few years.

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Google is looking to move some Pixel phone production out of China and into India, The Information reports. The company is seeking bids from contract manufacturers for production in India. Apple has already stepped up its efforts to make more of its iPhones in India as geopolitical tensions between the US and China rise. Sachin Bansal’s Navi Technologies gets its IPO go-ahead. And Peer Robotics, a Delhi startup, raises $2.3 milllion