FM Nirmala Sitharaman meets business leaders in San Francisco

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met several senior executives and business leaders in San Francisco and discussed bilateral areas of cooperation in sectors such as technology artificial intelligence energy and digital infrastructure as well as opportunities to enhance investment collaboration between India and the USSitharaman arrived in San Francisco Sunday as she began her 11day trip to the US and Peru with an interaction with the Indian diaspora in the Californian city On Monday she held several meetings with business leaders and corporate executives The minister met Silicon Valley venture capital firm a16z General Partner Anjney Midha and technology company VMware Chief Executive Officer Raghu Raghuram in San FranciscoShe discussed the remarkable transformation in technology space driven by Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership and suggested that a16z and VMware may like to explore collaboration across sectors within the domain of AI including in education healthcare and AI Centres of Excellence the Ministry of Finance said in a post on XRaghuram said that AI is a strategic infrastructure and the work India is doing in the field of AI is visible Midha said that a16z is working in 16 areas of infrastructure dedicated sectoral funds across many countries to provide solutions to realworld problems Sitharaman discussed the various facets of Indias AI efforts speaking about the need to skill and train the youth in the domain and encouraged a16z to explore possibilities for collaboration on that front the Finance Ministry saidShe also met Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and his team and discussed the transformative evolution of Indias digital infrastructure under the DigitalIndia initiative in recent years positioning the country as a global leader in digital adoption A post by the Finance Ministry on X said that Kurian acknowledged and appreciated Indias AI Mission and the trajectory the country is taking under PM Modi and called for connecting India to the world via land and sea cablesHe added that Google Cloud aims to operate entirely on carbonfree energy 247 at its data centres and offices worldwide by 2030 and spoke about an upcoming investment strategy that the group is working on for India Sitharaman encouraged Google Cloud to explore local linkages in India for territorial collaboration and build tech for India and the world as part of MakeInIndiaShe also met DataRobot CEO Debanjan Saha and underlined the steps that the Government of India has taken over years to boost digital infrastructure including budgeting Rs 10300 crore for IndiaAI Mission creating AI language technologies through BharatGen and Sarvam1 and the establishment of the Srijan Centre for Generative AI at the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at IITJodhpur among othersSitharaman informed Saha about the potential opportunity through the proposed Rs 1 lakh crore USD 12 billion corpus private sectordriven research development and innovation scheme and also about India ranking first globally in AI skill penetration where it is ahead of many developed countries the Finance Ministry saidSaha referred to Indias potential to become an AI superpower and expressed interest in participating in the AI Centre of Excellence for which the Union Budget 202526 recently allocated Rs 500 crore In a meeting with Turing CEO Jonathan Siddharth Sitharaman highlighted the policy framework that India has put in place for AI and encouraged him to explore opportunities for collaboration and fruitful engagementJonathan expressed his desire to see India at the forefront of AI revolution and spoke about working in the domain of AI with India and through Indian contributors to create a sovereign model that can serve as a template for the world the ministry said Sitharaman also attended a luncheon roundtable hosted by the Consulate General of India in San Francisco with various pension fund managers and other institutional investors along with Finance Secretary Ajay Seth and Indias Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan KwatraThe participants shared with the Finance Minister their views on the reforms pursued by the Government of India and gave feedback and observation on the existing policy framework They also spoke about their keen interest and commitment for a deeper and broadbased investment collaboration between the US and India and shared feedback on how to further facilitate the investment experienceSitharaman thanked the participants for their valuable feedback and spoke about the opportunities for investment and collaboration in the domain of energy and sustainability the Rs 1 lakh crore USD 12 billion corpus private sectordriven Research Development and Innovation Scheme and GIFTIFSC among othersLater in the day she delivered a keynote address on Laying the foundations for a developed India ViksitBharat by 2047 at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University She also participated in a fireside chat with Professor Steve Davis during the eventFrom San Francisco she will travel to Washington DC from April 2225 where she will participate in the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund IMF and the World Bank the 2nd G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor FMCBG Meetings Development Committee Plenary IMFC Plenary and Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable GSDR meetingThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params