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In today’s newsletter: 

• India nears rollout of first online gaming law
• WeWork India IPO off to a slow start
• Anthropic CTO's Bengaluru connection

Bonus: We have great recommendations for your weekend entertainment fix. Scroll below for more deets!

P.S.: Tune into Tech3 Podcast, your daily dose of tech and startup insights. Monday to Friday! Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And don’t forget to sign up to The AI Edge, our weekly newsletter on all things artificial intelligence.

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The government has inched closer to putting India’s first online gaming law into action

Yesterday, MeitY released the draft Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2025, opening it for public feedback until October 31.

• The rules bring the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, passed in August, into effect. 

• They prohibit online money games (or more popularly known as real-money games) in India while aiming to promote online social games and e-sports.

A new statutory body, the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI), will oversee regulation in the sector. It will:

• Decide if a game qualifies as a prohibited online money game.

• Register e-sports and social games.

• Issue directions, summon parties and impose penalties.

Developers must apply digitally, sharing details like the nature of the game, revenue model, and age group.

Also read: Draft online gaming rules mandate refund to users within 180 days of law coming into force

Registrations are valid for five years but can be suspended if these games morph into online money games.

• E-sports will first need recognition under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025.

The Youth Affairs & Sports Ministry will look after e-sports.

The I&B Ministry will take care of online social games, with content guidelines.

• Registration for online social games is voluntary but gives them formal recognition

Go deeper

The flexible workspace firm WeWork India’s IPO opened with more curiosity than clamour.

Bidding began on a quiet note as investors sized up the offer.

• Day 1 saw just 4% overall subscription, with bids for 11.1 lakh shares against 2.54 crore on offer.

Retail investors showed some early hustle at 14%, while non-institutional investors barely clocked 2%.

• Anchor investors had already pitched in earlier, picking up Rs 1,348 crore worth of shares.

This IPO’s less about raising funds and more about rearranging the cap table.

• The Rs 3,000 crore issue is a straight Offer for Sale — no fresh funds coming in.

• Embassy Buildcon and WeWork Global are heading for the exit doors, not the expansion track.

Embassy owns 76.2%, WeWork Global 23.4% — both will trim stakes through the sale.

Read: WeWork India: Can the IPO ride the flexible workspace growth wave?

WeWork India is clocking in at Dalal Street just as rivals Awfis and Smartworks have already set up shop.

MD & CEO Karan Virwani insists that the timing works in their favour, not against it.

“All these operators getting listed was a huge benefit. They educated the investors about the fundamentals of the business. By the time we met the investors, they were already aware of how the model works,” he told us in a recent interview.

With competitors already warming up the floor, WeWork India is hoping to capitalise on an investor base that’s done its homework.

Also watch: WeWork India MD & CEO Karan Virwani on future roadmap, revenue trends, new opportunities

The AI infrastructure war is heating up, and Anthropic is tapping an Indian-origin tech veteran for the fight.

Anthropic has hired Rahul Patil as its chief technology officer to boost its infrastructure game. 

• Patil is taking over from co-founder Sam McCandlish, who is moving to a new role as chief architect.

Patil is an alumnus of Bengaluru's PES University (formerly PES Institute of Technology), where he did his bachelor’s in computer science.

• He later earned a master’s in computer science from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of Washington.

Patil joins Anthropic from fintech giant Stripe, where he spent over five years in multiple roles, most recently as CTO.

• He has also had stints at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure.

Patil's appointment comes amid surging demand for Anthropic's Claude AI models across the world.

• Global customer base has grown from fewer than 1,000 business customers two years ago to over 300,000.

• Run-rate revenue jumped from $87 million at the start of 2024 to around $1 billion by early 2025, and it crossed $5 billion in August.

Anthropic is also expanding globally and setting its sights on India. The company plans to triple its international workforce and expand its applied artificial intelligence team fivefold this year.

Read: Anthropic valued at $183 billion after $13 billion fundraise

Tech giants such as Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft have been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into computing infrastructure as they seek to outdo one another in debuting their next-generation frontier models in the rapidly escalating AI arms race. 

• In recent weeks, Big Tech companies have announced over $500 billion in AI infrastructure deals. Do read our deep dive into this topic in our new AI newsletter.

Go deeper

• Perplexity is making its AI browser Comet available to all users for free, with rate limits. The company also announced new media partners for Comet Plus, a $5 monthly add-on that gives users access to content from a clutch of media outlets.

• A new report by a16z looks at which AI companies startups are actually paying for. OpenAI tops the list, followed by Anthropic and Replit.

As the extended Dussehra weekend rolls on, there’s no shortage of entertainment. You can catch the captivating mythological tale 'Kantara: Chapter 1' in the theatres. Or if you are a Swiftie, you’re probably already hooked on Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, which dropped today.

But if you are in the mood for a gripping thriller, don't miss The Game. 

• Produced by Applause Entertainment, the Tamil-language series follows Kavya Rajaram, a talented game developer with an award-winning game, as she becomes the target of a coordinated cyberattack and personal assault.

The seven-episode series also delves into the fragility of relationships and family conflict as the line between the real and virtual worlds begins to collapse. 

Watch on Netflix

Looking for something inspiring? Check out '13th: Some Lessons Aren't Taught In Classrooms', which tells the story of a venture capitalist Ritesh who reunites with his IIT-JEE mentor MT Sir to help scale his educational institute.

• The show is inspired by the real-life journey of renowned educator Mohit Tyagi who founded Competishun, an edtech platform for IIT-JEE and NEET preparation.

Watch on Sony LIV

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