One thing to watch: Nothing founder Carl Pei spoke to us about his startup journey, why he is bullish about India, and the perceived lack of innovation in the consumer technology sector.

• He also spoke about his experience using ChatGPT and why he is not that impressed.

Watch the interview 

In today’s newsletter:

• Amazon onboard the UPI of e-commerce
• India’s Atmanirbhar semiconductor push
• Emeritus, a profitable edtech?

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Amazon has made a commitment to integrate its logistics network and SaaS products with ONDC, the interoperable e-commerce protocol that is backed by the Indian government.

• The e-commerce behemoth said that this is an 'initial collaboration with ONDC as we continue to explore other potential opportunities for stronger integration'

This is a clear indication that Amazon is taking ONDC's goal of replicating UPI's success in e-commerce quite seriously.

ONDC has been making quick progress over the last 14 months of its existence and seeks to break down the walled gardens of e-commerce.

• ONDC began its first phase of pilots in five cities across the country in April last year

• In November, it opened the network to all users in Bengaluru for beta testing

• Just before the end of 2022, it announced an incentive scheme to attract more merchants to the network and started beta-testing in Meerut

Read our in-depth explainer on ONDC here

India is making a concerted push for semiconductors, and the pivot now is to ensure that the next generation of devices are not only designed in India, but also have intellectual property that is owned or co-owned in India, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar tells us in an interview.

• The minister says the talent ecosystem already exists and the government is encouraging talent to create startups in the sector
  
  
• Indian higher education system to focus on producing semiconductor engineers and technicians from the 2023-24 academic year, he says

• Intel’s acquisition of Tower Semiconductors needs to go through first, they cannot proceed forward at this stage. Proposal on hold
  
  
• Vedanta-Foxconn is under active consideration, to be decided soon

Chandrasekhar also addressed the lending app ban under the ministry, concerns around the age of consent of minors in the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and more. 

Read the full interview

Are we finally going to see a heavily-funded edtech unicorn turning profitable?

Well, at least Emeritus’ (formerly Eruditus) founders believe so. They are quite confident of their company, which has raised more than $800 million in equity funding to date, turning profitable by next fiscal.

Emeritus would break even in the current quarter and generate profit in the next quarter, founders Ashwin Damera and Chaitanya Kalipantapu told us. For the entire next fiscal, the company would turn profitable.

• Emeritus follows a July-June financial year

But there’s a caveat. This is on a bookings revenue basis and not on an accrued revenue basis. Accrued revenue typically takes about 80-85% of bookings revenue, Damera said.

• Accrued revenue typically excludes deferred revenue or advance fees collected for services that will be delivered over time.

The two founders also said that they see their revenue topping $430 million this year, representing a 40% increase over the previous year in what was otherwise an ordinary year for most edtech companies.

So far, Emeritus' revenue has come primarily from outside India, with the country accounting for only one-fifth of its total revenue.

However, in recent years, India has emerged as one of the company's most important markets.

“India is the fastest growing market for us. It will grow 4x in the next 24 months,” said Mohan Kannegal, CEO (chief executive officer) of India and APAC (Asia Pacific) Consumer business.

Go deeper

India's bike taxis have gotten into the elaichi-in-biryani conundrum. IYKYK! The very purpose of it is being debated by student passengers, mobility experts, industry officials, and government officials. 

Since the Delhi government's ban on bike taxis, the cost of travel has increased for a number of student passengers who relied on this mode of transportation. The bike taxi drivers are also deprived of a portion of their income, as this was a lucrative side gig for many delivery personnel! However, this ban has stirred many questions on safety, licensing, and India’s public transportation systems.

Read to know more

The AI craze is spreading like wildfire, and it's not just limited to writing poetry, coding or writing a novel. Thanks to powerful AI tools, tasks that once took days or even years can now be achieved in minutes. 

But what if AI could tackle something even more mundane - domestic chores?

Believe it or not, a recent survey of experts in the UK and Japan suggests that a revolution in AI could automate up to 39% of household tasks within the next decade. From grocery shopping to doing your laundry, robots could soon be taking on the lion's share of our domestic workload.

Of course, some tasks will be harder to automate than others. Caring for the young and elderly, for example, will likely remain a human-dominated field. When asked why care work was more difficult for AI to execute, experts said that the task focuses on social interaction and the challenges are not technical in nature -- something which is easier for AI to grasp.

But as the study's authors point out, a greater reliance on robots could help improve gender equality, as women still bear the brunt of unpaid domestic work.

So, the next time you're staring down a sink full of dishes or a pile of laundry, take heart - help may be on the way in the form of a robot assistant. And who knows? With all that free time, you might just end up writing the next best-selling novel (with a little help from AI, of course).

More from the world of AI:

• Why we should worry about Artificial Intelligence and its ethics
• Generative AI should make haste slowly
• Roger C. Schank, Theorist of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 76

• Dapper Labs, which laid off over 20% of its workforce in November of last year, has now decided to lay off an additional 20% of its full-time employees.
  
  
• In a new indictment, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces additional charges, including bank fraud and conspiracy to make illegal political contributions.

It's the final week of February, and we have a double dose of southern cinema blockbusters to elevate your weekend binge-watching experience!

First up, we have the highly anticipated family entertainer Varisu featuring Thalapathy Vijay, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

• The film follows the story of a man who finds himself thrust into the world of business and power after unforeseen circumstances force him to take over his father's empire.

But if it's high-octane action that you're craving, look no further than Veera Simha Reddy starring the charismatic Nandamuri Balakrishna, now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar. 

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