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Autonomous Agents and India’s AI Ascent · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarful Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Good morning. It is Monday, February 16th,
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  2026. You're listening to Connecting the Dots,
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  and I'm Alex. And I'm Morgan. We are coming to
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  you live from the Snarful Solutions Group headquarters
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  here in a... Well a very rainy Sacramento, California.
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  It is definitely a gray start to the week We're
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  here to help you get it started breaking down
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  the tech news and figuring out how it you know
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  actually Connects to your life and it is gonna
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  be a busy one It certainly is first a quick look
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  outside if you're here with us in Sacramento.
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  Happy Washington's birthday We're looking at
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  rain and a high of just 51 degrees So yeah, keep
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  that umbrella handy and for the rest of the country
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  a quick heads up There's a fire weather alert
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  for the central and southern plains. We're talking
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  gusty winds, low humidity. Meanwhile, out west,
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  two big Pacific storms are rolling in, so expect
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  mountain snow. Please be safe out there if you're
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  traveling. OK, let's glance at the markets. Friday's
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  for anyone watching crypto bitcoins trading down
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  that energy because our Morningstar report is,
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  uh... Very full today. It is. For our new listeners,
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  the Morningstar is our internal snarfle tech
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  article report. We've got three huge stories
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  today. We're talking about the rise of AI agents,
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  a user explosion in India, and a push for something
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  called a global AI commons. It really feels like
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  we're moving into a new phase. We're past just
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  cool demos, and now we're talking about real
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  infrastructure. Let's jump right in. Our first
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  story is a huge hiring announcement from OpenAI.
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  This was all over X yesterday. Sam Altman announced
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  that Peter Steinberger is joining the company.
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  And if you're a developer, that name is probably
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  very familiar. He's the creator of OpenClaw.
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  Right, which used to be called Quadbot and Moltbot.
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  This thing is an open source AI agent that just
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  went completely viral in early 2026. Viral is
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  an understatement. We're talking 198 ,000 stars
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  on GitHub. millions of site visits in just a
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  few weeks, it's huge. And this isn't his first
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  success. Steinberger founded a company called
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  PSPDF Kit, ran it for 13 years, sold it, and
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  then started playing with AI agents as a side
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  project. And now Sam Altman is calling him a
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  genius. Well, it's the specific mission that's
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  so interesting. Yeah. He said Steinberger is
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  there to drive the next generation of personal
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  agents. He's talking about very smart agents
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  that interact with each other. Okay, let's break
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  that down because I think we hear AI And our
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  minds immediately go to chat bot. But an agent
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  is different, right? They're fundamentally different.
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  A chat bot is like a really smart librarian.
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  You're asking a question, it finds the answer,
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  and it gives it to you. It's about information.
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  OK. An agent is more like an executive assistant.
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  It doesn't just answer. It does things. It completes
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  tasks, makes decisions, takes action, all without
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  you needing to guide every single step. So instead
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  of asking ChatGPT to, say, write an email to
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  my dentist, an agent could check my calendar,
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  find an open slot, call the dentist's scheduling
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  system, book the appointment, and then just put
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  it on my calendar for me. Exactly. You give it
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  the goal and it figures out the steps. It's a
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  huge leap. And this hire is happening while OpenAI,
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  which is now valued at a wild $500 billion, is
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  fighting a war on a few different fronts. They
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  really are. You have to talk about the competition
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  here. Entropic has been doing some amazing work.
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  They really have. Their Claude Opus 4 .6 and
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  Claude code models are fantastic at coding and,
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  maybe more importantly, at sustaining really
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  long, complex tasks. That's the battle right
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  now. Can your AI finish a big job without getting
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  confused? And Anthropic has been winning on that
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  reliability front, but there's a really crucial
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  detail in this OpenAI news about the open source
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  angle. Yes. Usually a big company buys a project
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  like this and immediately shuts it down or makes
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  it proprietary. But they're not doing that. No.
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  This is the strategic move. OpenClaw is going
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  to remain open source and it will live in a foundation
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  that OpenAI supports. And that matters because
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  it's already popular everywhere, including China.
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  It is. It works with Chinese models like DeepSeek.
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  By hiring Steinberger but keeping the project
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  open, OpenAI gets to keep a major foothold in
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  that fast -moving open source community. It's
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  a classic if you can't beat them, fund them strategy.
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  It keeps them relevant in a space where they're
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  usually seen as the closed guys. And it gives
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  them priceless data on how people are actually
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  using these agents in the wild. So if you had
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  a perfect personal agent right now, what's the
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  first annoying task you'd get it to do for you?
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  Oh, that's so easy. My digital photos. They're
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  a complete mess. I have them scattered across
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  Google Photos, iCloud, old hard drives. I feel
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  that. I would pay so much money for an agent
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  that could just go in, tag everything, delete
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  the duplicates, and organize it all. What about
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  you? Dentist appointments 100 % or maybe waiting
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  on hold with customer service Oh, that's the
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  one if an agent can just sit on hold with the
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  airline for 45 minutes And then ping me when
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  a human finally answers that would be life -changing.
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  I think the death of hold music would be the
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  ultimate killer app And that actually brings
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  us perfectly to our next story because while
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  we're dreaming about these advanced agents The
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  current chat bots are growing at an insane rate,
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  especially in India The number here is just staggering.
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  Sam Altman is in New Delhi right now for the
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  India AI Impact Summit. And he just revealed
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  that ChatGPT has hit a hundred million weekly
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  active users in India. A hundred million. That
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  makes India OpenAI second largest market right
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  behind the U .S. Yeah. And globally ChatGPT is
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  around eight hundred million weekly users, almost
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  nine hundred million. So one out of every eight
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  or nine users is in India. And here's the really
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  interesting part. The demographic. Altman said
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  India has the largest number of student users
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  in the world. That's the key. This isn't just
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  corporate adoption. This is the next generation
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  of workers building habits right now. It's just
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  like how we all learn to use Microsoft Word in
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  school, you know? Yeah. That locked in an entire
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  generation. OpenAI is hoping for the same effect.
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  But, and this is the big but, how do you make
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  money from that? 100 million users is great,
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  but are they paying customers? That is the multi
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  -billion dollar question. Most are on the free
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  tier. The average mobile data plan in India costs
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  less than $3 a month. So asking someone to pay
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  $20 a month for a subscription is a tough sell.
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  And Google is not making it any easier for them.
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  Not at all. Google's move is incredibly aggressive.
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  They partnered with Reliance Geo, which has 480
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  million subscribers. And what's the offer? They're
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  giving Geo's 5G customers their Gemini AI model
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  and get this 2 terabytes of cloud storage free
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  for 18 months. Two terabytes? That's impossible
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  to compete with. Once you've moved your entire
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  digital life into that storage, you are not leaving.
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  It's a classic mode. So OpenAI had to respond.
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  They launched a cheaper localized version called
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  ChatGPT Go for under $5. And then they had to
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  make that free for a year for some users just
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  to stay in the game. It's a price war. So they're
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  also trying to compete on quality on localization.
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  They launched something called in QA. Right.
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  It's a benchmark for 12 different Indian languages,
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  Hindi, Bengali, Tamil. The goal is to prove their
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  model understands the local culture and nuance
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  better than anyone else's. It's a long term play.
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  Altman is betting that India won't just be a
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  consumer of AI, but a builder of it. Exactly.
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  But for now, it's a brutal fight for market share,
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  not revenue. Speaking of building, that leads
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  us perfectly into our third story from the Morningstar.
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  We're staying in India, but we're shifting from
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  the corporate battle to public infrastructure.
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  And this might be the most important story of
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  the day. I think it is. This comes from Apishak
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  Singh, who is the CEO of the Indie AI mission.
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  As you said, the big summit starts today in New
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  Delhi. It's the first global AI summit ever hosted
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  in the global south. And he's proposing a vision
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  for a global AI commons. And this is just. It's
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  such a refreshing way to frame the conversation.
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  Instead of talking about stock prices, the vision
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  is about citizen impact. How does AI help a farmer,
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  a doctor in a rural village? And they're putting
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  serious money behind it. The budget is around
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  1 .2 billion US dollars. They're building the
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  actual nuts and bolts. Singh said they have 38
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  ,000 GPUs live right now. Which might not sound
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  like a huge number compared to a U .S. data center,
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  but the key is how they're deploying them, right?
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  Exactly. The government is incentivizing private
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  investment, but they're also subsidizing access.
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  If you're a startup or a researcher, the government
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  will cover up to 100 % of your GPU costs to build
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  a foundational model. That is a massive deal.
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  It just completely lowers the barrier to entry
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  for anyone with a good idea. And it's not just
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  compute. They're providing the data, too, through
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  this platform called AI Cosh. Gosh, like a treasury
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  or a repository. Right. It already has 7 ,000
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  datasets and 400 open source models available.
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  The idea is to create this shared data layer
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  so a developer doesn't have to start from scratch.
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  I love the quote from Singh. He said, artificial
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  intelligence is not meant to replace people.
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  It is meant to empower them. It really reframes
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  AI as. public infrastructure, like roads or electricity.
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  It's a utility that everyone can build on top
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  of, not just a product you buy from Silicon Valley.
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  It's about democratizing access. Which is such
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  a different perspective from the job -stealing
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  fears we so often hear about. It is. The ambition
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  is huge. Of course, execution is everything.
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  But the vision of a global AI commons is powerful
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  statement that says, we're going to build this
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  future for ourselves. What a day. From Austrian
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  developers to summits in New Delhi, the AI map
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  is definitely getting bigger. It absolutely is.
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  purchase. Just go to scony .com. Alright, let's
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  do a quick recap. A lot of information today,
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  so let's connect those dots. Okay. First, the
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  age of AI agents is here. Peter Steinberger joining
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  OpenAI means AI is about to get much better at
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  doing things for you, not just talking. Second,
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  India is now a certified AI superpower with 100
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  million weekly users. It is a massive and very
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  fierce battleground between Google and OpenAI
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  for those users. And finally, the IndieAI mission
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  is trying to reframe the global conversation.
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  By treating AI as public infrastructure, they
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  want to make sure its benefits reach everyone,
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  from farmers to doctors. It's a vision of AI
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  as a public utility. It's a great reminder that
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  the tech is only half the story. The other half
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  is who gets to use it and how. That's it right
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  there. Well, we have a lot to keep an eye on
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  this week, but that is our show for today. We're
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  here to help it snarfle, so reach out on our
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  website if you have any more questions. Thanks
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  for listening, everyone. Have a great Monday.
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  That's a wrap on today's top stories. Remember,
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  tech doesn't have to be complicated, and we're
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  here to help connect the dots. If you've got
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  questions or want to learn more, visit us at
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  snarful .com. Thanks for listening and we'll
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  catch you next time.