Cloud data centre capacity in India has reached approximately 1,280 MW, largely serving critical sectors such as banking, power and other critical public infrastructure, and according to industry estimates, it will grow by four-five times by 2030, the Parliament was informed on Friday during the Parliament Winter Session. Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada, speaking about the expansion of data centres across the country, said, “The expansion of data centres in the country is being propelled by the growing digitalisation and rapid adoption of AI across both government and private sectors, accompanied by the increasing adoption of cloud services." Global technology companies are already investing significantly in India’s AI and data centre ecosystem, news agency IANS reported. Google has already announced a USD 15 billion AI Hub in Visakhapatnam, making it their largest investment in India. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is also setting up an USD 8.3 billion data centre in Maharashtra. Minister Jitin Prasada stated that India is building a secure, scalable and AI-ready cloud infrastructure to support digital governance, private sector collaboration and citizen empowerment while addressing the Upper House of the Parliament. He further asserted, “The growing demand for cloud services across government, private and social sectors is driven by the country’s digital transformation and increasing use of AI-enabled applications." To meet the cloud requirements of the government, a national cloud infrastructure has been established under the Digital India initiative. The “GI Cloud”, known as MeghRaj, provides secure, scalable and elastic cloud facilities for delivery of e-governance services. While highlighting the features of GI Cloud-MeghRaj, the minister further stated, “The salient features of the ‘GI Cloud-MeghRaj’ include elasticity, scalability, pay-per-use metering, self-service provisioning, rapid deployment of applications, on-demand service provisioning, etc." Jitin Prasada, further stated, “The National Data Centres deliver cloud services to government departments and are designed to safeguard the cloud services from potential threats by implementing a layered security framework comprising established practices and procedures.” (With inputs from IANS)
12 December,2025 08:43 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondentApple Watch users in India will now have access to a groundbreaking hypertension notification feature designed to alert users if they have signs of chronic high blood pressure. Launched on December 4, Apple described this as a significant step in preventive health technology, particularly in a country where lifestyle-related diseases are on the rise. Hypertension is one of the leading causes of heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease, affecting nearly 1.3 billion adults worldwide. Despite its prevalence, it often goes undiagnosed due to a lack of symptoms or irregular medical check-ups. Even during clinical visits, a single blood pressure reading may fail to capture the condition accurately, and that is where the latest feature in the Apple Watch will come into play. The latest feature in the Apple Watch uses its optical heart sensor to analyse how a user’s blood vessels respond to each heartbeat. While running passively in the background, the algorithm reviews data over a 30-day period and notifies users if it identifies consistent indicators of hypertension. These alerts can prompt timely behavioural changes or medical intervention, potentially reducing the risk of long-term complications, making it a life-saving feature. Apple, while briefing about this life-saving feature on the Watch, also asserted that if users receive a hypertension notification, it is recommended that they log their blood pressure for seven days using a third-party blood pressure cuff and share the results with their doctor at their next visit. Apple, while emphasising this feature, also highlighted that, “Like all of Apple’s health features, hypertension notifications are grounded in rigorous scientific validation. The feature was developed with advanced machine learning and training data from multiple studies involving over 100,000 participants.” World Heart Federation’s president, Professor Dorairaj Prabhakaran, while highlighting this feature, said that “Hypertension is one of the most widespread yet under-diagnosed health conditions. Integrating opportunistic detection into a device people wear daily will democratise access for early detection and help people have more informed conversations with their doctors.” However, Apple further highlighted that the latest hypertension notifications will only be available on Apple Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later. The tech giant also emphasised that this feature is not intended for use by people under 22 years old, those who have been previously diagnosed with hypertension, or during pregnancy.
09 December,2025 04:51 PM IST | Mumbai | Tarun VermaUsers worldwide were left grappling with widespread internet disruptions on Friday after Cloudflare — a range of internet services provider to thousands of websites — suffered yet another outage. The incident led to access issues in several major platforms, including Canva, and even Downdetector, the highly-used service to track outages. Several Indian websites and several services, as well as news websites, faced the disruption, too. This marks Cloudflare's second disruption in less than a month. A similar technical issue in November had temporarily knocked out a range of services, including Spotify, ChatGPT, and US President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform. To date, Cloudflare has not released an official statement providing details on the cause or extent of the most recent outage. The unexpected shutdown saw irate users throng social media platform X, with several hashtags about the outage trending within no time. Netizens expressed anger over repeated disruptions, highlighting how the service failures had impacted their work, business operations, and online activities. Adding to users' frustrations, even Downdetector — a platform on which people rely to confirm when there are outages — was hit, leaving many unsure of the extent of the disruption. As the rate of the outages has raised some questions, users are calling for fast action and more transparent communications from Cloudflare to avoid such situations in the future. Last month, Cloudflare witnessed a major global disruption due to an internal configuration mistake. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince had denied cyberattack speculations. The outage disrupted several major platforms, including X, ChatGPT, Canva, Discord, and many other websites and apps around the world. In a post-mortem, Prince explained that the problem began when the company made a change to permissions on a ClickHouse database cluster. The update was meant to improve access to data, but a faulty query caused the system to pull in far more information than it should have. This error made a key “feature file” used by Cloudflare’s Bot Management system grow too large. This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
05 December,2025 04:42 PM IST | New Delhi | IANSThe South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics introduced its first multi-folding smartphone on December 2. The new model is called the Galaxy Z TriFold. It unfolds into a 10-inch screen using three connected panels. The company said the final display is almost 25 per cent larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Samsung has priced it at about $2440 (around Rs 2.2 lakh). The phone is manufactured in South Korea and will be released there on December 12. It will also reach China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the UAE later this year. A release in the US is planned for early next year, with other regions to follow. This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
03 December,2025 08:19 AM IST | Seoul | AgenciesIndustry experts on Saturday welcomed the government’s latest move to notify rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023. This particular modification in the Data Prevention Act will formally help in operationalising India’s first dedicated personal-data protection regime, news agency IANS reported. The notification rolled out by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) stated, “Social media sites, online gateways, and any other organisations handling personal data are required to give users a detailed explanation of the information being gathered and to make it apparent how it will be used." Ivana Bartoletti, Chief Privacy and AI Governance Officer of Wipro, said, “There is no doubt that India has entered a new era of privacy. In the age of AI, trust is crucial. And because AI depends on large volumes of data, strong privacy protections must come first. This development marks an important step in strengthening India’s digital ecosystem and aligns closely with the country’s recent AI governance guidelines." According to IANS, the Chief Privacy and AI Governance Officer of Wipro further stated, “The new rules come with robust data governance -- anchored in clear responsibilities, defined structures, consent, and privacy by design.” “These will enable organisations to grow in a sustainable and accountable way as innovation accelerates and technology becomes ever more embedded in daily life,” Bartoletti added while hailing the DPDPA Act 2023. According to the regulations, users must have an easy way to revoke their consent or complain to the Data Protection Board (DPB) about infractions. Consent managers, which are organisations authorised to act on behalf of users, have 12 months to register with the DPB. However, the companies will have up to 18 months to fulfil the administrative compliance requirements, IANS reported. Apart from Ivana, one of the partners in TMT [Technology, Media and Telecommunications], Trilegal, Nikhil Narendran stated, “With the notification of the Rules and the Act, the government has finally put all uncertainty to rest." “India Inc. now has an 18-month runway to gear up for full compliance. For most organisations, it will be necessary to start with data mapping, redesigns of consent and notice flows, and training programmes to ensure compliance, with the help of lawyers, technologists, and privacy professionals. The real focus will also be on the constitution of the new Data Protection Authority and how this regulator interprets these rules, prioritises enforcement, and how early guidance shapes India’s digital industry,” Narendran added. Jaspreet Singh, Partner and Chief Revenue Officer, Grant Thornton Bharat, while highlighting that DPDPA Rules 2025 marks India’s transition from policy intent to operational accountability and privacy, emphasised, “Compliance under DPDPA is not a checklist; it's a culture of trust every organisation must now institutionalise. The DPDPA era demands boardroom fluency in privacy governance; executives will now be measured by controls they can evidence, not promises they make.” (With inputs from IANS)
15 November,2025 10:27 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondentAmid the rising AI trends across the globe, India now leads the Asia-Pacific region in AI bot activity. A report on Wednesday said that India witnessed a 300 per cent increase in automated traffic globally over the past year. As reported by news agency IANS, AI bots generated 3.2 billion triggers in India, positioning the country as one of the most targeted in the APAC region. India is further followed by Japan and China, said the report from cybersecurity and cloud computing company Akamai Technologies. The report published by a cybersecurity firm revealed an alarming spike in automated traffic driven largely by AI-powered bots targeting websites across all industries. These bots generate billions of requests, significantly distorting digital operations and analytics, and make up nearly 1 per cent of total bot traffic on Akamai’s platform. The spike is primarily caused by content scraping, which undermines traditional web-based business models, publisher analytics, and ad revenue. While enlightening about the rising AI bot traffic, the report said, As bot traffic grows, publishers and other content-driven businesses are seeing corrupted analytics and collapsing ad revenues through bots extracting value without giving any in return. The report further revealed that “The rapid growth of AI-enabled tools has made it easier than ever for both experienced threat professionals and new malicious actors to launch impersonation attacks, conduct social engineering, distribute phishing campaigns, and commit identity fraud using AI-generated fake documents and images,” as cited by news agency IANS. In addition, malicious bots such as FraudGPT, WormGPT, ad fraud bots, and return fraud bots have been driving up the costs, degrading site performance, and skewing key metrics. According to global research, almost 25 billion bot queries were recorded during a two-month observation period. With the commerce sector leading the way in AI bot activity, the country observed a large inclination amid the AI bot activity. However, in the digital media sector, publishing was most affected, accounting for 63% of AI bot triggers. According to the report, scraping, mostly by search and training bots, accounts for over 90% of AI bot triggers in the healthcare industry. (With inputs from IANS)
05 November,2025 04:28 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondentUnique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Friday said that it has embarked on a comprehensive strategic and technological review to shape the next decade of Aadhaar’s evolution through a new ‘Aadhaar Vision 2032’ framework, recognising the rapidly changing technological and regulatory landscape. According to the Ministry of Electronics and IT, this forward-looking roadmap will strengthen Aadhaar’s technological foundation, integrate emerging digital innovations, and ensure that India’s digital identity platform remains robust, inclusive, and future-ready. "UIDAI’s technology stack, which forms the backbone of Aadhaar services and works as a facilitator of our digital economy, is set for a major upgrade," the ministry said. To guide this ambitious transformation, UIDAI has constituted a high-level Expert Committee under the chairmanship of Neelkanth Mishra, Chairperson, UIDAI. The committee brings together eminent experts and leaders from academia, industry, and administration to provide strategic direction on strengthening Aadhaar’s innovation roadmap. The committee will develop the Aadhaar Vision 2032 document, outlining the framework for next-generation Aadhaar architecture aligned with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, and emerging global standards of privacy and cybersecurity. "The Aadhaar Vision 2032 framework will focus on leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Quantum Computing, Advanced Encryption, and next-generation Data Security mechanisms," the ministry said. These will ensure Aadhaar remains resilient against evolving cybersecurity threats, scalable for future demand, and adaptive to the rapidly changing digital landscape. The other members of the committee are Bhuvnesh Kumar, CEO, UIDAI; Vivek Raghavan, Co-Founder of Sarvam AI; Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix; Sasikumar Ganesan, Head of Engineering, MOSIP; Rahul Matthan, Partner, Trilegal; Navin Budhiraja, CTO; Head of Products, and Vianai Systems. Prabaharan Poornachandran, Professor at Amrita University, Anil Jain, Professor at Michigan State University, Mayank Vatsa, Professor at IIT Jodhpur, and Shri Abhishek Kumar Singh, Deputy Director General, UIDAI, are also part of the committee. This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
31 October,2025 06:23 PM IST | New Delhi | IANSAfter a lot of speculation and rumours, Elon Musk’s AI-powered online knowledge platform, Grokipedia, was officially launched on October 27. However, within hours of the launch, the Grokipeida site went offline, only to return shortly thereafter. As per the reports, Elon’s latest introduction, Grokipedia, has gone live with almost 8,85,000 articles. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk earlier announced that the AI-built knowledge platform will roll out in a few days. Tesla chief Elon Musk, before the launch of Grokipedia, posted on a social media platform stating that his latest product will be the world’s largest and most accurate knowledge source, for humans and AI, with no limits on use. The post by Elon Musk further reads, "Grok is using massive amounts of inference compute to look at, sources like Wikipedia page and asking: What’s true, partially true, false, or missing?," as per IANS. While hailing the latest xAi-built knowledge platform, Elon Musk said that this platform will analyse sources like Wikipedia, flagging falsehoods, correcting half-truths, and adding missing context in its entries before showing the results. Elon Musk, while posting on X, also said, “The reason why it will be the true knowledge source is because it's built solely for the truth and to navigate to the truth... free from bias or hidden agendas. Elon never does anything by half measures; he dives straight to the full extent," as per IANS. Billionaire Elon Musk has also consistently criticised Wikipedia’s funding and editorial approach. His proposal to use AI to “navigate to the truth” has generated mixed reactions on X, with some users expressing support for a new competitor, while others caution that Grok’s training data may introduce new biases. As stated during his earlier statements, Musk has said that Grokipedia is intended to be a “massive improvement over Wikipedia” and a step towards xAI’s goal of understanding the universe. Elon Musk, on October 2, became the world’s first person ever to reach a net worth of $500 billion, followed by Oracle’s Larry Ellison at a distant second. Musk’s AI startup xAI was valued at around USD 75 billion (as of July). xAI was targeting a $200 billion valuation after a fundraise, although Musk said the company was not raising capital at that time. Elon Musk’s feat came as Tesla shares rose over 14 per cent so far this year, closing 3.3 per cent higher on October 2, adding more than USD 6 billion to Musk’s wealth. According to Forbes' billionaires index, Musk’s net worth stood at $500.1 billion as of 4.15 pm ET (1:45 am Thursday India time) earlier on October 2. On the other hand, Oracle Founder Ellison was the second-richest person on Forbes' list, with a net worth of about $350.7 billion, as per IANS. (With inputs from IANS)
28 October,2025 04:29 PM IST | Texas | mid-day online correspondentAmid the rising demand for iPhones in India, Apple in Q3 of 2025 recorded the highest-ever shipments to India. With the success of its new iPhone 17 series and festive season demand, Apple Inc. shipped 4.9 million smartphones to the country during the July–September quarter of 2025 (Q3 CY25), according to industry estimates, reported IANS. According to research firm Omdia, this massive import to India marks a 47 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth, representing Apple’s strongest performance in the Indian market to date. Furthermore, India accounted for 9 per cent of Apple’s total global iPhone shipments in the quarter, which is the highest share ever for the country, underscoring India’s growing importance in the company’s global strategy, as per IANS. The major reason for Apple’s massive import to India is the launch of the iPhone 17 series on September 9. The flagship model of Apple played a key role in driving record sales. The new 17 series lineup features major camera upgrades, including a 48MP Fusion Main camera and a 48MP Fusion Ultra-Wide lens, alongside a 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion. iPhone 17 now comes with the new A19 chip for enhanced performance and Ceramic Shield 2 technology, offering three times better scratch resistance and reduced glare. Moreover, US tech giant Apple is expected to post its highest-ever festive quarter in India this year, with analysts forecasting a 28 per cent increase in sales compared to last year, driven by the early popularity of the iPhone 17 series, as per IANS. In the April–September period of the current financial year, tech giant Apple shipped iPhones worth about USD 10 billion (over Rs 88,500 crore), marking a 75 per cent growth compared to the same period last year, according to industry estimates. This huge success of Apple also reflects the strong push of the government’s ‘Make in India’ and production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes, which have encouraged Apple to expand its manufacturing base in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. On the other hand, the majority of the iPhones produced in India this year were exported to the US, amounting to nearly 78 per cent, up from 53 per cent a year earlier. (With inputs from IANS)
23 October,2025 01:27 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondentOpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, which promises to be one of the best AI-powered web browsers. OpenAI claims that this browser has been designed to redefine how people use the internet. The Atlas has been built entirely around ChatGPT, which aims to merge artificial intelligence with traditional web browsing. This one-of-a-kind browser is known for offering a seamless and interactive online experience, news agency IANS reported. OpenAIsays that Atlas is now available globally for macOS users and will soon arrive on Windows, iOS, and Android. At its core, Atlas places ChatGPT directly inside the browser rather than adding it as an extension, making internet browsing a lot easier and specific to your search. The AI-powered browser has been integrated with a new-tab page that doubles as both a chat window and a traditional search bar, allowing users to browse websites, get AI-generated answers, and view regular search results all in one place. Using this browser, people can switch between links, images, videos, and news without leaving the chat interface. Apart from the AI-powered search and browsing, one of the biggest highlights of ChatGPT Atlas is its optional browser memory. The optional browser memory feature of this browser allows the application to remember key details from visited websites, enabling users to ask follow-up questions such as, “Summarise the job postings I checked last week,” without re-entering links. OpenAI says that “users will have full control over what the AI remembers and can easily clear data or browse privately”. By default, browsing content will not be used for model training unless users choose to opt in. Another major upgrade done on the browser is the introduction of ‘Agent Mode’, which allows ChatGPT to take actions directly inside the browser. For example, it can research topics, open tabs, extract data, and even interact with services like Instacart to build shopping carts from recipes, as reported by IANS. Product lead Adam, while explaining further about the browser, said, “Atlas can now book reservations or flights or even edit a document that you’re working on." He further added, “The browser also includes a feature called ‘cursor chat’, which lets users highlight any text, such as an email, and ask ChatGPT to rewrite or refine it instantly.” OpenAI chief Sam Altman described Atlas as a step toward a new way of using the internet where the chat experience becomes a natural part of web navigation. Altman added, “The way that we hope people will use the internet in the future… the chat experience in a web browser can be a great analogue." (With inputs from IANS)
22 October,2025 06:45 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondentFocusing on taking the technology game to a whole new level, Apple, with the launch of the iPad Pro M5 chip, has set a benchmark for other tech giants. Globally disrupting the tech industry, the latest iPad now marks a significant step in mobile computing by offering advanced AI-enabled features. The integration of the M5 Chip on the iPad Pro not only makes it a powerful device, but it also makes the device a lot more adaptive and smart. The M5 chip integrated inside this device is a technological marvel that has been engineered with perfection to give users a whole new experience. Whether you talk about speed, graphical intervention or multitasking, the M5 chip on the iPad Pro is something that assures greatness in every aspect. The all-new iPad Pro M5 The iPad, since its introduction in 2010, has been a device that offers a perfect blend of mobile technological operations. With every generation passing by, Apple has successfully managed to upgrade the iPads with better processors, great displays and optimum performance. However, this time Apple now brings a massive update that could be revolutionary. The iPad Pro, launched on October 15, now comes with a powerful AI-enabled processor that will take the performance of this tablet to a whole new level. The iPad Pro with the M5 chip, engineered with sheer perfection, delivers substantial speed and efficiency improvements across demanding creative and professional workflows. Powered by Apple’s most advanced chip to date, the device now also offers best-in-class performance in an ultra-thin and portable design. iPad Pro M5 features and specifications The iPad Pro with the M5 chip can be a perfect choice for all your video editing and content creation jobs. Along with the super-fast processor, the iPad Pro M5 also offers the third-generation ray-tracing engine for realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows, making it perfect for creators, editors, and graphic designers. Graphics: The iPad Pro has been equipped with a third-generation ray-tracing engine for realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows. It delivers up to 1.5x faster 3D rendering than iPad Pro with M4 and 6.7x faster than iPad Pro with M1. Video performance: The latest generation iPad Pro offers up to 6x faster video transcoding in Final Cut Pro for iPad compared to M1 models and 1.2x faster than M4. AI capabilities: Up to 4x faster AI image generation in Draw Things for iPad versus M1, and 2x faster than M4. AI Video Upscaling: Up to 3.7x faster performance in DaVinci Resolve for iPad compared to M1, and 2.3x faster than M4. Ideal for: Graphic designers, architects, and business professionals requiring high-speed multitasking, 3D modelling, and AI-powered workflows. iPad Pro with M5 Chip price in India As per Apple, the iPad Pro with the M5 chip will be in Apple Store locations and Apple authorised resellers from Wednesday, October 22. As per Apple, the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at Rs. 129,900 for the Wi-Fi model and Rs. 149,900 for the Wi-Fi + cellular model.
15 October,2025 08:39 PM IST | Mumbai | Tarun VermaADVERTISEMENT
-1765551117165_d.png?tr=w-436,h-271 "Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada. Pic/X")
