Enterprise Tech Dispatch: Game over for Huawei in India? TikTok cares about your mental health

Officials from Australia’s cybersecurity agency Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) have advised India’s government to ban Huawei from participating in the upcoming 5G trials, Reuters reported citing The Australian and Australia Financial Review. 

Australia was one of the first countries to ban Huawei. 

TechCircle reported in June that the Chinese telecom equipment giant was still hopeful that the Indian government would take an ‘independent decision’ on it participation in upcoming trials for 5G mobile networks. The company is facing similar bans in countries such as New Zealand and the US.

TikTok’s community service

While we all know how and why TikTok went viral, the popular short videos platform is planning to give back something to Indian users. The company has partnered with the Suicide Prevention India Foundation (SPIF) to start a sucide awareness campaign, Zeenews reported. The programme will look at improving the mental health of citizens as well.

And  talking about mental health, The Economic Times reported that IIT graduates in India not only lead in incorporating the largest number of startups but also lead in terms of startups tapping into the mental health as a business opportunity. Some examples of these startups include Moodcafe, 1to1help.net and YourDost.

Digital capability centre for India

The country’s premier think tank Niti Aayog, which has been working at implementing technologies such as AI, blockchain and IoT in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture and education, has roped in consulting firm McKinsey to develop a digital capability centre in the country, The Economic Times reported. 

In August, Niti Aayog had partnered with Dell Technologies to start a student internship programme under the government’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). In May, the policy think-tank had sought Rs 7,500 crore from the department of public expenditure in order to push research and boost implementation of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing. 

According to a Business Standard report, the finance ministry has approved a sum of Rs 7,500 crore for the think tank’s artificial intelligence programme.

First ocean-powered data centre?

The world might soon see an ocean-powered data centre coming off the coast of Scotland. If the project reminds you of Microsoft’s ocean data centre project, then you are close but the big difference is that the data centre will be powered by tidal waves.

Energy company SIMEC Atlantis will partner with engineering firm AECOM to study if the project can be executed off the Irish coast with a power supply of 80MW from tidal waves.

Big Tech can’t get enough of India’s startups

India is home to the world’s second largest startup ecosystem and global corporations want to tap into this ecosystem either expand into new businesses or put themselves on a faster innovation trajectory.

The latest reinforcement of the principle comes from Jeff Bezos-led Amazon's cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which operates as Amazon Internet Services Private Ltd (AISPL) in India. One of the top executives of the company, in a conversation with TechCircle, said that it was focusing on edtech startups in India via its EdStart accelerator programme that was launched in the country last year. 

Vincent Quah, business head for education, not for profit organisations and public sector worldwide, said the company was looking at the possibility of working with private equity and venture capital firms along with aggregators of startups and small incubators to drive more value.  

In today's news

HCL Technologies leads today's news by acquiring semiconductor firm Sankalp Semiconductors in an all cash deal for Rs 180 crore. We will also do a dive into AWS' Public Sector business in the country later today.