Google introduces AI Mode shopping tool with US rollout underway
Google has introduced a groundbreaking AI-powered shopping experience called AI Mode, designed to simplify and personalise every step of the online shopping journey. The new features combine Google's advanced Gemini model with its Shopping Graph to create a smarter, more intuitive way for users to browse, choose and buy products online.
Google has launched AI Mode, an AI-powered shopping tool using its Gemini model and Shopping Graph with over 50 billion listings. It offers visual search, smart suggestions, agentic checkout, and a new virtual try-on feature. Shoppers can now upload full-length photos to preview clothing realistically. The features are currently rolling out in the US to enhance shopping experiences.
With over 50 billion product listings from global retailers to small local shops, the Shopping Graph offers users a comprehensive and up-to-date selection, refreshed every hour with more than 2 billion updates.
By tapping into this massive database, AI Mode helps users find the perfect item by combining visual inspiration, smart suggestions and reliable product data. For example, when a user searches for a cute travel bag, AI Mode understands the intent behind the query and returns a browsable panel of curated images and listings, customised to the user's taste and needs, Google said in a blog.
If the search is refined further—such as looking for something suitable for rainy weather in Portland—AI Mode runs simultaneous searches to understand the ideal materials and features, then updates the product panel with relevant waterproof options.
Beyond browsing, Google is also enhancing how users make purchasing decisions. A new agentic checkout feature allows shoppers to track prices and complete purchases when the timing is right. After selecting a product's size, colour and preferred price, users can tap 'track price' and receive notifications when the cost drops.
When ready to buy, tapping 'buy for me' triggers Google to automatically add the item to the cart and complete the checkout using Google Pay on the merchant's website, making the buying process more seamless than ever. This feature will roll out across product listings in the US in the coming months.
The update includes a virtual try-on feature using personal photos. Google's try-on tool has already helped shoppers visualise clothes on a range of model body types. Now, it takes a step further by letting users upload their own full-length photos to see how clothing items might look on them.
This experience is powered by a custom image generation model tailored for fashion, which accurately renders the way different fabrics fold, stretch and drape on various body shapes and poses. The result is a realistic try-on experience that helps shoppers confidently explore new styles.
This new virtual try-on feature is currently rolling out in Search Labs in the US and supports billions of apparel listings including shirts, pants, skirts and dresses. When browsing these items, users will see a 'try it on' icon on product listings. Once selected, the tool quickly renders the outfit onto the user's uploaded image, making it easy to preview styles, save looks or even share them with friends for a second opinion.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (HU)
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Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
OnePlus Pad 3 review: This powerful device further blurs the line between tablets and computers
'Don't buy a tablet, buy a real computer.' I am sure you have heard this advice from tech reviewers like us in the past. I don't entirely blame my community—there was a time when tablets were too underpowered to handle basic computing tasks, let alone compete with a laptop. And I am not talking about a decade ago; even as recently as the Covid-19 pandemic, that was still the case. But something has changed in the past two to three years. Tablets have become significantly more powerful and have started to feel much more like real computers. Not all tablets, of course—but a segment of high-performance models has emerged, packing impressive power and offering features like built-in keyboard cases, multitasking capabilities, and long battery life. On the Android side, there's noticeable momentum—a push from brands to create pro-grade tablets that can compete with Apple's iPad Air and even the highest-end iPad Pro, though the options are still limited. The latest OnePlus Pad 3, for example, takes on premium tablets with a slimmed-down design, a 13.2-inch display, faster performance, upgraded multitasking features, and it runs Google's Android operating system. I won't lie—I had low expectations for the Pad 3, and I wasn't sure if OnePlus could deliver a truly powerful tablet. To be clear, there are already solid tablets on the market that excel at entertainment, but I was looking for something closer to a laptop replacement. That meant I had even higher expectations for the Pad 3: a tablet that could outperform not only media-focused tablets, but also a fast, mid-range laptop. I spent over a week with the OnePlus Pad 3, and used the device as my laptop replacement. Here's my review. What: OnePlus Pad 3, Price: to be announced (at the time of writing, OnePlus has not released the India price, but in the US, the device costs $700 and accessories, including the keyboard case with a trackpad, cost extra.) At 5.97mm, OnePlus has managed to create one of the slimmest tablets I have seen. It's slightly thicker than the iPad Pro, which, at 5.1mm, is currently the thinnest tablet on the market. I was astonished to see how slim the Pad 3 was when I placed it on the table. I have always liked lightweight devices—they are much easier to travel with, especially for someone like me who travels frequently. That thin design is complemented by a premium build featuring a sturdy aluminium casing. There's no doubt the Pad is large, with a 13.2-inch screen measured diagonally. Larger tablets have always been a bit awkward to hold, mainly because the weight is spread over a wider surface area. But because the Pad 3 is thinner and lighter, I find myself picking it up more often. I love reading books on the Kindle app and spend a lot of time on Pinterest or Reddit. While the Pad 3 isn't exactly a one-handed device, the new lighter form factor makes it feel much more like a true tablet. It's more approachable. It's simply easier to handle, and I haven't experienced any situation where it felt like it was about to slip from my hands. I am not sure what the ideal shape of a tablet should be. Most tablets are designed to look similar, and the same goes for the Pad 3. It features a large, jumbo-sized screen framed by a rounded glass rectangle, with bezels wide enough to grip with both hands without interfering with the touch interface. The Pad 3 features a sophisticated yet clean and simple aesthetic. The tablet comes in two colour schemes: Storm Blue and Frosted Silver — both look great. OnePlus loaned me the review unit in Storm Blue, which has shades of dark grey and navy blue. The colour shifts depending on the angle you view it from. The build quality is top-notch — there's no flex at all, and absolutely no reason to say the iPad has better build quality than the Pad 3. In the past, I tried working on a small iPad mini, but it just didn't work for me. I wanted a compact device, but I also needed a larger screen — something big enough to get real work done, the kind of tasks I can normally only do on a laptop. That meant I couldn't settle for an 8-inch or even an 11-inch display; I needed at least a 13-inch screen, which the Pad 3 offers. The larger display not only helps with writing and filing stories, but also greatly improves the experience of watching movies, playing games, doing light photo and video editing, and even attending Zoom calls. Honestly, over the past week or so, I have barely used my TV to watch movies — I have been watching almost everything on the Pad 3. The advantage of a larger screen becomes clear only when you start doing substantial everyday tasks that you typically do on a computer. Multitasking actually becomes useful, and the extra screen space is especially helpful when working on Google Sheets or Slides. The Pad 3 offers a refresh rate of up to 144Hz, which is higher than the 120Hz provided by the iPad Pro. However, it uses an LCD panel rather than OLED. That said, the Pad 3's display is excellent—plenty bright at up to 900 nits, vibrant, and it supports a 12-bit colour range. I watched The Studio on Apple TV+, and the show looked great on the Pad 3's 13.2-inch display—almost like having a portable theatre. Even more impressive are the speakers on this tablet. It features eight speakers—four woofers and four tweeters—and while they don't quite beat the iPad Pro's, I must say they sound incredible. I was able to enjoy the audio clearly even while my parents were sipping tea and chatting nearby. It's that good. While an OLED display would have been a nice addition to the Pad 3, the average user likely won't notice much difference between LCD and OLED—unless you specifically care about true blacks or plan to use the device primarily for video editing. I have been using tablets as laptop replacements for years and have tried hundreds of keyboards—laptop-style, tablet-specific, and universal ones that work across devices. But no matter how good they were, I never quite achieved a true laptop-level typing experience on a tablet. That changed with the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard. Unfortunately, I haven't come across a keyboard made for an Android tablet that matches—or even comes close to—that level of quality. With the Pad 3, however, things are looking up again. The keyboard is one of its strong points. It's sold separately and costs $200. The keyboard includes a spacious trackpad and is a pleasure to type on. What's great about it is that it's not designed to simply mimic a laptop keyboard—it's built to deliver a true laptop-like experience. It's almost full-sized, with good key travel, and typing on it is enjoyable. As a writer, I can say with confidence that not once in the past week have I felt the need to switch back to my laptop. OnePlus' approach to keyboard design is different from what Apple did with the Magic Keyboard, which essentially makes the iPad float in the air. It also feels like it weighs twice as much as the iPad, though it doesn't tip over backwards—even when the screen angle makes it feel top-heavy. What OnePlus has done is attach the keyboard to the Pad 3 via pogo pins, or it can auto-connect via Bluetooth. This means it can be detached from the tablet while still remaining functional. As someone who likes to move around within a space and doesn't enjoy being confined to a desk, I appreciate the freedom to use the tablet however I choose. But like the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro, OnePlus' implementation isn't perfect. I've observed that while the Pad 3's keyboard works perfectly well on any flat surface (like a desk), using it on your lap is an awkward experience. The keyboard doesn't use USB-C for charging, so the only way to charge it is by reconnecting it to the tablet—which, fortunately, is automatic and seamless. It also features NFC, which is a nice addition. Just tap your OnePlus phone (I used the new OnePlus 13s) to send files. There's even a dedicated key to trigger Google's Gemini AI assistant. Apart from the keyboard, the tablet also supports the OnePlus Stylo 2, which is sold separately. It hasn't changed from the version that came with the Pad 2. I didn't try the stylus, though. I may be in the majority when I say this: I have always wanted a tablet with a terrific keyboard that gives a true laptop-like experience—something designed for the tablet and not just a third-party add-on. I couldn't be happier that it finally exists on an Android tablet. The OnePlus Pad 3 can be a laptop when I need it to be—and the rest of the time, I can detach the keyboard and use it in tablet mode. My only gripe is that the keyboard lacks backlighting. That's a letdown, especially if you are a night owl and like to work at night. Still, I understand not everyone needs a keyboard, which is why it's sold separately. That said, the OnePlus-designed keyboard is a much better choice if you want to carry around a tablet with a keyboard without feeling like you are lugging a laptop. If you only plan to use the Pad 3 occasionally as a work device, you can easily pair it with any Bluetooth keyboard of your choice—Logitech, for instance, makes some good keyboards. I recommend checking out. One of my criticisms of tablets (including iPads) in recent years is that the user experience hasn't matured to the level of what you get with Windows laptops and Macs. The entire industry is aware of this, and I'm not the only one with a critical take on it. To my surprise, I have started to appreciate how the Android operating system works on tablets more than iPadOS on iPads. There's clear progress on the Android side, both from Google and from various brands. It's not that the user interface has become exactly like a Windows PC—and I don't think that's necessary—but there are subtle changes that I find refreshing. Frankly, phones can already handle many of the tasks you do on a laptop. But you use a computer to do multiple things at the same time—browsing, watching videos, listening to music, writing, working on an assignment, and so on. You get what I am trying to say. The interface on the Pad 3 is different from what you see on a phone. For lack of a better word, let's call it a modified version of Android optimised for tablets. The version of OxygenOS running on the Pad 3 puts its own spin on the Google app bar, which can be dragged into view from the bottom of the screen when using an app, allowing for seamless switching. It shows both recent and pinned apps, along with a quick file browser for system-wide drag-and-drop functionality. Although I am still looking forward to the desktop mode on the Pad 3 (hopefully with the arrival of Android 16), the proprietary multitasking interface—Open Canvas, which first debuted on the OnePlus Open foldable phone—feels much better on the larger screen. It allows you to place three apps side by side, or arrange two side by side with a third app expanded at the top or bottom—just scroll to access it. With a single tap, you can swap the active app—no menus or gestures required. There's also a quick menu at the top of each window that lets you switch to full screen, open a different app, or turn it into a floating window. It works incredibly well and goes far beyond basic split-screen functionality. If you are serious about getting work done, no other Android tablet comes close to the Pad 3—thanks to Open Canvas multitasking. OnePlus hasn't made many changes to the user interface otherwise; it remains close to stock Android with just a handful of its own apps and barely any bloatware. There are plenty of customisation options, including the choice between a combined or split quick settings menu and multiple ways to adjust app icons. There's also an option for a floating toolbar, which you can disable if desired. Keeping up with the trend, there's a dose of AI—but it's not in your face. The voice recorder can use AI to transcribe and summarise your audio, which I used a lot when conducting interviews. Google's Circle to Search is included, and Gemini is the default voice assistant. Meanwhile, the Notes app has a generative writing assistant that can expand, shorten, or polish any text. The photo gallery also benefits from AI features. OnePlus promises three years of Android version updates and six years of security updates. It's decent, but still less than what Samsung offers for its flagship tablets. In comparison, Apple provides six years of iPadOS updates. It's not just games that I can play on the Pad 3—at this level of performance, I can do some serious work. Armed with the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor (the flagship chip of 2025), along with 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage, the Pad 3 is built for high performance. I opened ten Google Chrome tabs simultaneously and was able to write a story in Google Docs, upload it using our content management system, and publish it without any lag. This is exactly what I have wanted from a tablet, and the Pad 3 delivers. For 90 per cent of users, the Pad 3 will meet expectations with ease, handling all the must-have and frequently used apps without issue. You are probably wondering how the Pad 3 compares with a Windows laptop or a Mac. Well, that depends on your intended use. If you are buying the Pad 3 for casual use, such as working on Word and Excel, and making presentations, editing, or gaming, it's a fantastic choice. However, it's a different story when you compare it to a MacBook Pro or a high-end gaming laptop. While the Pad 3 may feel a bit snappier in certain tasks, there are limitations, whether due to hardware or software. That said, these limitations also apply to Windows laptops and Macs, depending on the configuration. One advantage of the Pad 3 is the simplicity of choice—unlike Windows laptops or Macs, which come in hundreds of configurations, choosing a Pad 3 is easier. Your decision really comes down to your profile and how you plan to use your device. Perhaps the biggest surprise to me was that the Pad 3's battery life lasted around 15 hours. OnePlus claims a battery life of 17 hours, and I spent the entire day using the Pad 3—not only for work, but also to catch the latest season of And Just Like That. In comparison, the iPad is still rated at just 10 hours. For those who are keen to compare the Pad 3 to the iPad Pro, I would say that Apple's highest-end tablet remains a powerful device. Its chip delivers desktop-class performance, and while the operating system has its flaws, Apple's suite of editing apps and its broader ecosystem provide a significant advantage. That said, the iPad Pro is positioned more as a professional-grade editing machine, designed primarily for video editors and content creators. For example, it can be used as an editing monitor or a colour-grading display—capabilities that put it in a different league beyond what most people typically expect from a tablet. But the OnePlus Pad 3 is no less impressive, and this tablet shows just how far high-end Android tablets have come. I was able to upload and publish stories, edit images in Lightroom, cut videos in Adobe Rush, and multitask between a web browser and file manager with no trouble. Features like Open Canvas and O+ Connect—which offer an AirDrop-like experience between the Pad 3 and a Mac—do enhance the overall experience. However, I still feel that the Android OS lacks high-quality tablet apps. Maybe the OnePlus Pad 3 is the best high-end Android tablet, although it's not an iPad Pro competitor just yet (and I don't think OnePlus is trying to undercut that device). It seems more directly aimed at the iPad Air.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Inside OpenAI's plan to embed ChatGPT into college students' lives
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life. If the company's strategy succeeds, universities would give students AI assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized AI study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot's voice mode to be quizzed aloud before a test. OpenAI dubs its sales pitch 'AI-native universities.' 'Our vision is that, over time, AI would become part of the core infrastructure of higher education,' Leah Belsky, OpenAI's vice president of education, said in an interview. In the same way that colleges give students school email accounts, she said, soon 'every student who comes to campus would have access to their personalized AI account.' To spread chatbots on campuses, OpenAI is selling premium AI services to universities for faculty and student use. It is also running marketing campaigns aimed at getting students who have never used chatbots to try ChatGPT. Some universities, including the University of Maryland and California State University, are already working to make AI tools part of students' everyday experiences. In early June, Duke University began offering unlimited ChatGPT access to students, faculty and staff. The school also introduced a university platform, called DukeGPT, with AI tools developed by Duke. OpenAI's campaign is part of an escalating AI arms race among tech giants to win over universities and students with their chatbots. The company is following in the footsteps of rivals like Google and Microsoft that have for years pushed to get their computers and software into schools, and court students as future customers. The competition is so heated that Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, and Elon Musk, who founded the rival xAI, posted dueling announcements on social media this spring offering free premium AI services for college students during exam period. Then Google upped the ante, announcing free student access to its premium chatbot service 'through finals 2026.' OpenAI ignited the recent AI education trend. In late 2022, the company's rollout of ChatGPT, which can produce human-sounding essays and term papers, helped set off a wave of chatbot-fueled cheating. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, which are trained on large databases of texts, also make stuff up, which can mislead students. Less than three years later, millions of college students regularly use AI chatbots as research, writing, computer programming and idea-generating aides. Now OpenAI is capitalizing on ChatGPT's popularity to promote the company's AI services to universities as the new infrastructure for college education. OpenAI's service for universities, ChatGPT Edu, offers more features, including certain privacy protections, than the company's free chatbot. ChatGPT Edu also enables faculty and staff to create custom chatbots for university use. (OpenAI offers consumers premium versions of its chatbot for a monthly fee.) OpenAI's push to AI-ify college education amounts to a national experiment on millions of students. The use of these chatbots in schools is so new that their potential long-term educational benefits, and possible side effects, are not yet established. A few early studies have found that outsourcing tasks like research and writing to chatbots can diminish skills like critical thinking. And some critics argue that colleges going all-in on chatbots are glossing over issues like societal risks, AI labor exploitation and environmental costs. OpenAI's campus marketing effort comes as unemployment has increased among recent college graduates — particularly in fields like software engineering, where AI is now automating some tasks previously done by humans. In hopes of boosting students' career prospects, some universities are racing to provide AI tools and training. California State University announced this year that it was making ChatGPT available to more than 460,000 students across its 23 campuses to help prepare them for 'California's future AI-driven economy.' Cal State said the effort would help make the school 'the nation's first and largest AI-empowered university system.' Some universities say they are embracing the new AI tools in part because they want their schools to help guide, and develop guardrails for, the technologies. 'You're worried about the ecological concerns. You're worried about misinformation and bias,' Edmund Clark, the chief information officer of California State University, said at a recent education conference in San Diego. 'Well, join in. Help us shape the future.' Last spring, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Edu, its first product for universities, which offers access to the company's latest AI. Paying clients like universities also get more privacy: OpenAI says it does not use the information that students, faculty and administrators enter into ChatGPT Edu to train its AI. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, over copyright infringement. Both companies have denied wrongdoing.) Last fall, OpenAI hired Belsky to oversee its education efforts. An ed tech startup veteran, she previously worked at Coursera, which offers college and professional training courses. She is pursuing a two-pronged strategy: marketing OpenAI's premium services to universities for a fee while advertising free ChatGPT directly to students. OpenAI also convened a panel of college students recently to help get their peers to start using the tech. Among those students are power users like Delphine Tai-Beauchamp, a computer science major at the University of California, Irvine. She has used the chatbot to explain complicated course concepts, as well as help explain coding errors and make charts diagraming the connections between ideas. 'I wouldn't recommend students use AI to avoid the hard parts of learning,' Tai-Beauchamp said. She did recommend students try AI as a study aid. 'Ask it to explain something five different ways.' Belsky said these kinds of suggestions helped the company create its first billboard campaign aimed at college students. 'Can you quiz me on the muscles of the leg?' asked one ChatGPT billboard, posted this spring in Chicago. 'Give me a guide for mastering this Calc 101 syllabus,' another said. Belsky said OpenAI had also begun funding research into the educational effects of its chatbots. 'The challenge is, how do you actually identify what are the use cases for AI in the university that are most impactful?' Belsky said during a December AI event at Cornell Tech in New York City. 'And then how do you replicate those best practices across the ecosystem?' Some faculty members have already built custom chatbots for their students by uploading course materials like their lecture notes, slides, videos and quizzes into ChatGPT. Jared DeForest, the chair of environmental and plant biology at Ohio University, created his own tutoring bot, called SoilSage, which can answer students' questions based on his published research papers and science knowledge. Limiting the chatbot to trusted information sources has improved its accuracy, he said. 'The curated chatbot allows me to control the information in there to get the product that I want at the college level,' DeForest said. But even when trained on specific course materials, AI can make mistakes. In a new study — 'Can AI Hold Office Hours?' — law school professors uploaded a patent law casebook into AI models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. Then they asked dozens of patent law questions based on the casebook and found that all three AI chatbots made 'significant' legal errors that could be 'harmful for learning.' 'This is a good way to lead students astray,' said Jonathan S. Masur, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a co-author of the study. 'So I think that everyone needs to take a little bit of a deep breath and slow down.' OpenAI said the 250,000-word casebook used for the study was more than twice the length of text that its GPT-4o model can process at once. Anthropic said the study had limited usefulness because it did not compare the AI with human performance. Google said its model accuracy had improved since the study was conducted. Belsky said a new 'memory' feature, which retains and can refer to previous interactions with a user, would help ChatGPT tailor its responses to students over time and make the AI 'more valuable as you grow and learn.' Privacy experts warn that this kind of tracking feature raises concerns about long-term tech company surveillance. In the same way that many students today convert their school-issued Gmail accounts into personal accounts when they graduate, Belsky envisions graduating students bringing their AI chatbots into their workplaces and using them for life. 'It would be their gateway to learning — and career life thereafter,' Belsky said.
Mint
4 hours ago
- Mint
Mary Meeker's AI report: Decoding what it signals for India's tech future
India is mentioned less than five times, and only once in a headline, in Mary Meeker's 340-page Trends: Artificial Intelligence report. Yet, it has been making waves in the technology community since its release in May. One reason for its popularity is that Meeker, an influential technology analyst since the early days of the internet, has released such a report after a four-year hiatus. Another is that she offers sharp insights on the themes relevant to India—AI adoption, pricing, impact on the labour market, and the country's position in an ever-shifting AI landscape. Global spread The launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT kick-started the current interest in AI. The speed at which ChatGPT's users grew was unprecedented. It took ChatGPT just two months to reach 100 million users compared to Instagram's 2.5 years, WhatsApp's 3.5 years, and Facebook's 4.5 years. Equally important is the speed of its international reach. The ChatGPT app reached a point where 90% of its users were outside North America in its third year, a milestone that took the internet 23 years to achieve. Also Read: The brain behind Generative AI has his sights set on India India played a key role—it accounts for 13.5% of global ChatGPT mobile app users as of April 2025, compared to the US' 8.9%, driven by India's 886 million internet users, mostly via smartphones. Over 153 million smartphones were shipped in 2024 alone, according to Counterpoint Research. Besides, ChatGPT supports many Indian languages, including the top six. India also accounts for 6.9% of DeepSeek mobile app users, the third largest after China and Russia. Pricing power Major AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Perplexity, all offer a free tier for users, which explains India's share in the mobile apps. The premium versions of these platforms are about $20 per month, and more advanced versions could cost $100 to $250 per month. The pricing is global and doesn't take into account purchasing power. (Low prices are key to capturing the Indian market. India's telecom tariffs, for example, are among the world's lowest.) For AI companies, subscription and developer API fees are key. However, the report points out that the AI landscape is competitive, with well-funded tech incumbents, emerging challengers, and a growing open-source movement all vying for market share. Besides, the performance gap between closed-source and open-source models is narrowing, putting pressure on pricing power. Whether this would lead to telecom-style lower costs is not clear yet. Labor market Mary Meeker highlighted a clear shift in demand away from traditional IT roles toward those requiring AI skills. While AI-related IT job postings in the US increased by 448% between January 2018 and April 2025, non-AI IT job postings declined by 9% over the same period. The cumulative number of new global job titles containing AI terms grew by 200% between Q2 2022 and Q2 2024. Beyond creating new titles, companies are integrating AI skills as a core competency for their entire workforce. Also Read: AI Tool of the Week | How to use Google Stitch to design apps even if you have zero coding skills Companies like Duolingo and Shopify state that AI use is now a "baseline expectation" and will be factored into hiring and performance reviews. This shift is especially important for Indian IT services companies, which grew by offering US tech skills at a lower cost. The changing job market must be reflected in their workforce too, validating their recent investments in AI training for employees. AI factories While Indian IT services companies are "right-skilling" their employees, the big tech companies in the US are investing in "AI factories", as the report describes the data centres. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta spent $228 billion on CapEx in 2024, a 55% increase year-over-year. CapEx of the Big Six (including Apple and Nvidia) has grown at a 21% annual rate over the last decade and now represents 15% of their total revenue, up from 8% a decade ago. Also Read: Devina Mehra: Yes, AI is coming for our jobs; it's the old story of new tech A significant portion has gone into building hyperscale data centres, faster network infrastructure, and acquiring specialised hardware like GPUs and custom AI accelerators. They've also increased R&D spending to 13% of revenues in 2024, up from 9% a decade ago. This spending is fueled by immense financial strength—these companies collectively generated $389 billion in free cash flow in 2024 and held over $443 billion in cash. They are using these resources to invest aggressively in what they see as the next fundamental wave of technology. Indian companies lack this financial capacity, partly explaining the AI pessimism in India. The two-power race These investments have positioned the US as the leader in AI systems, followed by China, with both far outpacing the rest of the world. China has dramatically accelerated its AI capabilities through national initiatives like 'Made in China 2025". Chinese AI models from DeepSeek, Alibaba (Qwen), and Baidu (Ernie) are rapidly closing the performance gap with US counterparts, often at lower training costs. AI now underpins China's nationally strategic areas, including battlefield logistics and cyber operations, raising US concerns. The report quotes Microsoft's Brad Smith, noting that China recognises that if a country standardizes on its AI platform, it will likely rely on that platform in the future. The US response, therefore, should be 'not to complain about the competition but to ensure we win the race ahead". Other countries are taking notice. More nations, including India, are increasingly pursuing 'Sovereign AI" policies to build domestic computing capacity using their own infrastructure and data. is a database and search engine for public data.
