0:00 For the first time ever, AI has been used to design working viruses in a laboratory.0:05 That’s not a movie plot, that just happened.0:08 Last episode we were tracking the big money and power plays across India's tech scene, but this is a totally different level.0:16 This isn't just about who got funded—this is about AI moving from simply analyzing our world to actively designing brand new parts of it.0:25 And that's not the only foundational shift this week.0:29 Nvidia just invested in the Indian AI startup Sarvam, part of a seventy-five-million-dollar funding round that now values the company at one-point-five BILLION dollars.0:40 One of Google's absolute legends, Sanjay Ghemawat—a co-creator of tech like MapReduce that basically runs the modern internet—just left to co-found his own AI startup called Discovery Loop.0:53 His goal?0:53 To automate scientific and engineering experiments at scale.0:57 Meanwhile, Oracle and Quantinuum just announced a partnership to make quantum computing accessible through the cloud, taking it from a theoretical physics experiment to a tool you can actually rent.1:10 And it's all starting to pull in serious domestic capital.1:14 Larsen & Toubro's innovation fund just announced it's doubling down on Indian deep-tech, specifically targeting very early-stage companies to help them build from the ground up.1:26 Even state governments are waking up, with Uttar Pradesh approving new deep-tech innovation centers—so-called U-Hubs—in Lucknow and Noida.1:35 Okay, but let's go back to those AI-designed viruses, because you need to understand what a threshold we just crossed.1:43 For years, we've used AI to analyze biological data—to find patterns in DNA, to predict how proteins might fold.1:50 That was already revolutionary.1:52 But this is different.1:54 This is generative biology.1:56 The AI wasn't given a virus to study; it was given rules and a goal, and it designed a functioning biological system from scratch.2:04 Think about what that means.2:06 The report on this said AI can now "move beyond analysing biological data to actively designing living biological systems." The potential applications are staggering.2:17 Custom-built viruses could deliver gene therapies with incredible precision, or act as targeted weapons against specific cancer cells, or even fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.2:29 This is the start of engineering biology the way we engineer software.2:34 Of course, the biosecurity risks are obvious and serious, and experts are already calling for stronger guardrails.2:41 But the capability is now proven.2:43 The genie is out.2:45 And it connects directly to the other big shift happening right now.2:49 The money.2:50 Deep-tech funding in India just crossed two billion dollars this year.2:54 Now, that's up from nine hundred million in 2023, so more than double.2:59 But here’s the crucial part—that two billion dollars was spread across fewer deals.3:05 Way fewer.3:05 Four hundred sixty-eight deals in 2023 became just one hundred seventy-nine deals in 2026.3:11 So investors aren't just spraying money around anymore.3:15 They are making bigger, more concentrated, higher-conviction bets on foundational technologies.3:21 This is where a player like L&T comes in.3:24 Their fund head, Sushma Kaushik, admitted that most Indian corporates are still "dabbling a little carefully" in this world.3:32 But L&T is doing the opposite.3:34 She said, "If a company is at TRL 4 or 5, we want to help take them to 7 or 8." TRL means Technology Readiness Level.3:42 Four or five is basically a lab prototype.3:45 They are stepping in when it's still just raw science and helping build it into a real business.3:51 This is the hands-on, high-risk, high-reward work that builds a real deep-tech ecosystem.3:57 It's a sign that the capital is finally getting as sophisticated as the science.4:02 And that's why someone like Sanjay Ghemawat leaving Google is such a massive signal.4:08 He's not leaving to build a better photo-sharing app.4:11 He's building Discovery Loop to "accelerate discoveries and progress" by automating science itself.4:18 The smartest minds are no longer just optimizing ads; they're building tools to unlock the next wave of fundamental breakthroughs.4:26 When you put it all together—the AI that can design life, the investors making huge bets on hard science, and the top-tier talent leaving Big Tech to build it—you see the real story.4:39 The center of gravity in tech is shifting.4:41 It's moving from the world of bits to the world of atoms.4:45 The next decade of innovation in India won't just be written in code.4:50 It'll be designed in a lab.
