FM Nirmala Sitharaman holds talks with US business leaders in San Francisco
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met several senior executives and business leaders in San Francisco and discussed bilateral areas of cooperation in sectors such as technology, artificial intelligence, energy and digital infrastructure as well as opportunities to enhance investment collaboration between India and the US.
Sitharaman arrived in San Francisco Sunday as she began her 11-day trip to the US and Peru with an interaction with the Indian diaspora in the Californian city.
On Monday, she held several meetings with business leaders and corporate executives.
The minister met Silicon Valley venture capital firm a16z General Partner Anjney Midha and technology company VMware Chief Executive Officer Raghu Raghuram in San Francisco.
She 'discussed the remarkable transformation in technology space' driven by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership and 'suggested' that a16z and VMware "may like to explore collaboration across sectors" within the domain of AI including in education, healthcare, and AI Centres of Excellence, the Ministry of Finance said in a post on X.
Raghuram said that AI is a strategic infrastructure, and the "work India is doing in the field of AI is visible.'
Midha said that a16z is working in 16 areas of infrastructure dedicated sectoral funds across many countries to provide solutions to real-world problems.
Sitharaman discussed the various facets of India's AI efforts, speaking about the need to skill and train the youth in the domain and encouraged a16z to explore possibilities for collaboration on that front, the Finance Ministry said.
She also met Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and his team and discussed the 'transformative evolution of India's digital infrastructure under the #DigitalIndia initiative in recent years, positioning the country as a global leader in digital adoption.'
A post by the Finance Ministry on X said that Kurian acknowledged and appreciated India's AI Mission and the trajectory the country is taking under PM Modi and called for connecting India to the world via land and sea cables.
He added that Google Cloud aims to operate entirely on carbon-free energy 24/7 at its data centres and offices worldwide by 2030 and spoke about an upcoming investment strategy that the group is working on for India.
Sitharaman encouraged Google Cloud to 'explore local linkages in India for territorial collaboration and build tech for India and the world as part of #MakeInIndia."
She also met DataRobot CEO Debanjan Saha and 'underlined the steps that the Government of India has taken over years to boost digital infrastructure, including budgeting ₹10,300 crore for IndiaAI Mission, creating AI language technologies through BharatGen and Sarvam-1, and the establishment of the Srijan Centre for Generative AI' at the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at IIT-Jodhpur among others.
Sitharaman informed Saha 'about the potential opportunity through the proposed ₹1 lakh crore (USD 12 billion) corpus private sector-driven research, development, and innovation scheme' and also about India ranking first globally in AI skill penetration where it is ahead of many developed countries, the Finance Ministry said.
Saha referred to India's potential to become an AI superpower and expressed interest in participating in the AI Centre of Excellence, for which the Union Budget 2025-26 recently allocated ₹500 crore.
In a meeting with Turing CEO Jonathan Siddharth, Sitharaman highlighted the policy framework that India has put in place for AI and encouraged him to explore opportunities for collaboration and fruitful engagement.
Jonathan 'expressed his desire to see India at the forefront of #AI revolution and spoke about working in the domain of #AI with India and through Indian contributors to create a sovereign model that can serve as a template for the world,' the ministry said.
Sitharaman also attended a luncheon roundtable hosted by the Consulate General of India in San Francisco with various pension fund managers and other institutional investors along with Finance Secretary Ajay Seth and India's Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra.
The participants shared with the Finance Minister 'their views on the reforms pursued by the Government of India and gave feedback and observation on the existing policy framework."
They also spoke about their keen interest and commitment for a deeper and broad-based investment collaboration between the US and India and shared feedback on how to further facilitate the investment experience.
Sitharaman thanked the participants for their 'valuable" feedback and spoke about the opportunities for investment and collaboration in the domain of energy and sustainability, the ₹1 lakh crore (USD 12 billion) corpus private sector–driven Research, Development, and Innovation Scheme, and GIFT-IFSC among others.
Later in the day, she delivered a keynote address on 'Laying the foundations for a developed India #ViksitBharat by 2047', at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She also participated in a fireside chat with Professor Steve Davis during the event.
From San Francisco, she will travel to Washington DC from April 22-25, where she will participate in the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the 2nd G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) Meetings, Development Committee Plenary, IMFC Plenary, and Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR) meeting.
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