FM Sitharaman interacts with pension fund managers, tech leaders in US; seeks collaboration on AI front

FM Sitharaman interacts with pension fund managers, tech leaders in US; seeks collaboration on AI front

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman interacted with various pension fund managers, technology executives, and other institutional investors in San Francisco, US on April 22nd, the official handle of finance ministry on X  platform said.

The pension-fund participants shared their views on the reforms pursued by the central government, and expressed their “keen interest” and commitment for a deeper and broad-based investment collaboration between US and India, the ministry said. They gave their feedback on the existing policy framework, and shared their views on how to further facilitate and enhance the investment experience.

During the meeting, Sitharaman spoke about the opportunity for investment and collaboration in the domain of energy and sustainability, the Rs 1 lakh crore corpus private-sector driven research, development, and innovation scheme; and GIFT-IFSC, among others, said the ministry.

MEET WITH TECH LEADERS

The FM also interacted several tech leaders, advisors, and executives during her visit to San Francisco. According to the ministry, the FM met Debanjan Saha, CEO, DataRobot; Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud; and Jonathan Siddharth, CEO, Turing. She also met Anjney Midha, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz (a venture capital firm majorly investing in tech start-ups), and Raghu Raghuram, CEO, VMware.

FM said the transformation in technology space is driven by the leadership of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and suggested that Andreessen Horowitz and VMware may like to explore collaboration across sectors within the domain of AI including in education, healthcare, and AI Centres of Excellence (CoE), the ministry posted on X.

Raghuram said that AI is a strategic infrastructure, and the work India is doing in the field of AI is visible, and Midha noted that Andreessen Horowitz is working in 16 areas of infrastructure dedicated sectoral funds across many countries to provide solutions to real-world problems. The FM encouraged Midha to explore possibilities for collaboration on skilling and training the youth in the domain of AI.

Google Cloud’s Kurian appreciated India’s AI Mission and the trajectory India is taking, and called for connecting India to the world via land and sea cables, the ministry said. Kurian said that Google Cloud aims to operate entirely on carbon-free energy at its data centres and offices worldwide by 2030, and spoke about upcoming investment strategy that the group is working on for India. The FM, meanwhile, encouraged the company to explore local linkages in India for territorial collaboration and build tech for India and the world as part of ‘Make in India’.

Turing’s Siddharth expressed his desire to see India at the forefront of AI revolution and spoke about working in that domain with India and through Indian contributors to create a sovereign model that can serve as a template for the world, the ministry said. And DataRobot’s Saha referred to India’s potential to become an “AI superpower” and expressed interest in participating in the AI Centre of Excellence, it said.