The Nasdaq Composite Index surged past 20,000 for the first time on December 11, marking a 33 percent gain this year, driven by strong performances from tech giants like Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet and Tesla.
The rally, fuelled by enthusiasm for AI (artificial intelligence) and expectations of rate cuts, came after a US inflation report boosted hopes of a rate cut by the US Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, Reuters reports. The index closed at 20,034.89, up 1.8 percent.
However, concerns are rising over high valuations and the dominance of mega-cap stocks, which now carry a larger weight in the index. Despite these concerns, experts suggest the rally remains more sustainable than the 1999 dot-com bubble, according to the Reuters report.
Google has updated its AI assistant Gemini with two new features: Deep Research and Gemini 2.0 Flash. Deep Research uses AI to conduct research for users.
In a few minutes, Gemini continuously refines its analysis, browsing the web the way humans would: Searching, finding interesting pieces of information and then starting a new search based on what it’s learnt, Dave Citron, senior director, product management, Gemini app, writes in a blog post.
Gemini then repeats this process multiple times and, once complete, generates a comprehensive report of the key findings, which a user can export to a Google Doc. It’s organised with links to the original sources, relevant websites and businesses or organisations “you might not have found otherwise”, Citron writes.
Gemini 2.0 Flash is an experimental model that offers more performance and speed.
GCCs in India have grown, but there is room for scale: Avasant
Even though India has seen the rise of global capability centres (GCC) over the last 25 years, evolving from operational support to strategic innovation hubs, only 33 percent of Fortune 500 companies currently have a GCC in India, notes a new report on the landscape.
And further, while GCCs are becoming increasingly significant in the strategic operations of parent enterprises, most do not achieve very high scale, notes the report released by Avasant, a management consultancy.
Today there are more than 1,750 GCCs in India. Only about 5 percent of those have a headcount exceeding 5,000 employees. The median headcount for GCCs is approximately 400, indicating that many centres operate on a relatively smaller scale, according to the report. Even among the biggest companies, the median GCC headcount is around 1,550, suggesting that there is considerable potential to expand their operations.
SolarSquare bags $40 million in largest Indian solar venture funding
SolarSquare, a solar installation startup in Mumbai, has raised $40 million in Series B funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners India, with participation from Lightrock. The investment is the largest such round in a solar startup in India, the company said in a press release. Existing investors Elevation Capital, Lowercarbon, Rainmatter and Gruhas Proptech joined in.
SolarSquare is a “full-stack” residential solar power installation provider that eliminates middlemen and offers better customer experience, the company says. It was founded in 2015 by Neeraj Jain, Shreya Mishra and Nikhil Nahar. The company handles all that’s needed by a customer—from design to installation, government permits, helping with loans and providing post-sales maintenance—according to the release.
Since its inception, SolarSquare has made installations in 20,000 homes and more than 200 cooperative housing societies. With the new funding, the company expects to invest heavily in building a state-of-the-art asset management tech stack for remote monitoring and diagnostics of residential solar systems. It also aims to expand into more cities in India.
Netrasemi Raises Rs10 Crore for Edge AI IoT Chips
Netrasemi, a Kerala-based semiconductor startup, has secured Rs10 crore in a pre-Series A funding round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The funds will be used to develop two machine learning (ML) System-on-Chip (SoC) models, the Netra A2000 and Netra R1000, for Edge AI in IoT (Internet of Things) devices, the Thiruvananthapuram company said in a press release.
Founded in 2020, Netrasemi designs high-performance, power-efficient chips for applications like surveillance, robotics and autonomous vehicles. Its chips enable AI-driven analytics directly on devices, reducing reliance on cloud servers. The company has generated three quarters of a million dollars in revenue so far and expects significant growth.
Unicorn India Ventures sees strong potential in Netrasemi’s AI solutions for the rapidly expanding Edge AI market, Anil Joshi, managing partner, said in the release.
Google has updated its AI assistant Gemini with two new features: Deep Research and Gemini 2.0 Flash