Recent Current Affairs related to AI

Sikkim has become the first fully paperless state judiciary in India, marking a milestone that coincides with the 50th anniversary of the statehood of Sikkim. The declaration was made by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant during a two-day national conclave on technology and judicial education held in Gangtok. The transition to a digital system incorporates AI tools to assist judicial officers. These include the Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency (SUPACE) for legal research and the Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS) for language translation.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has launched a $70 billion connectivity initiative to integrate power and digital networks across the Asia-Pacific region by 2035. The initiative includes a $50 billion programme named “Pan-Asia Power Grid Initiative” to transition from bilateral energy links to a regional power trade framework.

ADB will contribute $25 billion (50% of the funding). By 2035, the project aims to integrate 20 Gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy, construct 22,000 circuit-km of transmission lines, and reduce regional power sector emissions by 15%. It will improve electricity access for 200 million people by focusing on infrastructure.

The “Asia-Pacific Digital Highway” involves a $20 billion investment to bridge the digital divide and facilitate growth driven by AI. By 2035, it targets providing first-time broadband access to 200 million people and enhancing service quality for 450 million others.

The programme aims to reduce connectivity costs by 40% for remote areas. Additionally, a “Centre for AI Innovation and Development” will be established in Seoul, South Korea. The announcement was made during the 59th Annual Meeting of the bank in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for the Google Cloud India AI Hub in Tarluvada, Visakhapatnam. Valued at $15 billion (₹1.35 lakh crore), it is the largest single Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) project in India.

The facility will be managed by Raiden Infotech India Pvt Ltd (a subsidiary of Google) in collaboration with AdaniConneX (a Joint Venture (JV) between Adani Enterprises and EdgeConneX) and Nxtra by Airtel. The project will be completed over 5 years with a capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW), making it one of the largest AI focused data centers in India.

The Maharashtra Cabinet has approved the ‘AI Policy 2026’ to foster technological growth and infrastructure development in the state.

The policy aims to attract an investment of ₹10,000 crore and generate 1.5 lakh employment opportunities by 2031. The initiative focuses on the establishment of innovation centres and the implementation of skill training programs to support AI driven economic expansion.

Pixxel has partnered with Sarvam to develop and operate the first orbital data centre satellite of India named “Pathfinder”. The 200 kg-class spacecraft is projected to be deployed in orbit by the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2026.

It is to be noted that Pixxel will handle the design, construction, and launch of the satellite, while Sarvam will integrate an AI framework to facilitate on-orbit training and inference through full-stack language models.

Parminder Singh has been appointed as the CEO of Reliance Enterprise Intelligence Ltd (REIL) with immediate effect. It is to be noted that REIL is a joint venture (JV) between Reliance Intelligence Ltd and Facebook Overseas Inc of Meta.

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced that the Government of India (GoI) has established a high-level panel to evaluate systemic threats posed by “Mythos”, an advanced AI model developed by Anthropic. The announcement was made after a meeting with Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and senior banking executives.

The committee is chaired by CS Setty, the Chairman of the SBI and leader of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA). The primary objective of the panel is to assess “AI-born” risks to the financial sector and identify strategic technology investments required to enhance national resilience.

Lee Jae Myung, the President of the Republic of Korea, accompanied by First Lady Kim Hea Kyung, has visited India at the invitation of PM Narendra Modi. During a bilateral summit at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, both nations announced a “Joint Strategic Vision” to expand the India-ROK Special Strategic Partnership (SSP) for the 2026-2030 period.

The visit resulted in the establishment of an Industrial Cooperation Committee (ICC) and the formulation of a framework for the “India–Korea Digital Bridge” to facilitate collaboration in AI, semiconductors, and Information Technology. Both countries also agreed to resume negotiations for upgrading the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Srikanth Velamakanni, the Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive of Fractal, has been appointed as the Chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) for the 2026-2027 term. He succeeds Sindhu Gangadharan.

Kishor Patil, the MD & CEO of KPIT Technologies, has been elected as the Vice Chairperson of NASSCOM.

BharatGen Technology Foundation has signed a 5-year MoU with L&T Semiconductor Technologies (LTSCT) and L&T-Vyoma, subsidiaries of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), to develop the first end-to-end sovereign AI compute platform in India.

The partnership aims to establish a completely indigenous AI ecosystem to reduce dependency on international supply chains and imported hardware, thereby fostering domestic technological self-reliance.

DataKaveri Systems, the commercial arm of the Centre of Data for Public Good (CDPG) of the IISc Bengaluru, has signed an MoU with the Japan-based ONESTRUCTION Inc to integrate construction data into AI-ready urban data exchange systems across Indian and Japanese cities.

The collaboration involves connecting the openIBM platform of the latter with the Intelligent Universal Data Exchange (IUDX) of the former. It is to be noted that the IUDX platform is currently operational in 55 smart cities in India.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has received ‘Prajna’, an indigenously developed satellite imaging system designed to provide real-time decision support for security agencies. The system, an AI-enabled platform, was developed by the Centre for AI and Robotics (CAIR), a laboratory under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It utilizes advanced imaging to enhance the technical and operational capabilities of security forces.

N Alim Yusuf, a botanist from Kerala, has been honoured with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) National Award. The award was presented during the National ECHO Youth Innovation Summit 2026, held as part of the International Youth Biodiversity Conference in Hyderabad.

He was recognised for developing ‘NeophyteID’, an AI powered mobile application that identifies 100 invasive plant species in Kerala. The application uses the YOLOv11 Machine Learning model for detection. WWF has also provided a seed grant of ₹1.5 lakh for the further development and scaling of the project.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has constituted the Technology and Policy Expert Committee (TPEC) to serve as an advisory arm to the newly established AI Governance and Economic Group (AIGEG) in New Delhi.

S Krishnan, the Secretary of MeitY, has been appointed as the chairperson of the committee. The TPEC aims to translate complex technological concepts into practical policy insights and strengthen the participation of India in various global forums for AI governance.

Razorpay has partnered with OpenAI to integrate the payment infrastructure of Razorpay into Codex, the coding platform of OpenAI. This collaboration enables developers to build and monetize AI applications using a single natural language prompt.

The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) has signed an MoU with Jumps Automation LLP under the C-DOT Collaborative Research Programme (CCRP) to develop a gamification platform for cybersecurity awareness.

The initiative aims to enhance the cybersecurity preparedness of individuals and enterprises through an interactive digital environment.

Carlos Alcaraz, the world number one ranked tennis player from Spain, has been appointed as the Global Brand Ambassador of Infosys, a global technology services firm.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs has signed an MoU with the IIT Patna under the PM Virasat Ka Samvardhan (PM VIKAS) scheme. The initiative aims to enhance the employability and placement opportunities of minority youth through modern, technology-driven skilling interventions.

The RBI has unveiled its medium-term strategy framework named “Utkarsh 2029”, which will be implemented from April 2026 to March 2029. The strategy aims to consolidate the position of the RBI as a world-class, full-service central bank by outlining 49 deliverables across six strategic pillars.

The six pillars of the framework include robust regulations, customer centricity and inclusive finance, competitive markets, effective technology, a future-ready organisation, and global integration. The framework introduces “Project Sa-Mudra” to modernise currency management and envisions the expansion of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for efficient cross-border payments.

The RBI also intends to scale up the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) to enhance credit access for underserved segments of the economy. Additionally, the strategy includes the development of an indigenous AI tool based on a purpose-built Large Language Model (LLM) for internal operations.

According to the “Growth in the New Economy: Towards a Blueprint” report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the global economy is projected to expand by $56 trillion over the next 5 years. Asia is set to remain the primary engine of global expansion, contributing more than 50% of the total growth.

Middle-income economies are projected to contribute 65% of the cumulative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth between 2025 and 2030. The report further states that low-income economies will account for only about 1% of global growth.