Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Friday, January 31, 2025. This is Nelson John, let's get started. India's affluent are reviving their investment in IPOs, evident from the significant funds they've poured into the market in 2024. High-net-worth individuals (HNIs), with assets over ₹5 crore, have shown a notable increase in IPO subscriptions, reaching a three-year high. The bullish sentiment among these investors is fueled by the substantial listing gains observed post-pandemic, enhancing their risk appetite, Dipti Sharma writes. This trend aligns with a broader surge in equity investments, reflecting heightened investor confidence and a robust appetite for high-risk, high-reward opportunities. The resurgence in IPO investments among India's wealthy is part of a broader narrative of rising affluence and entrepreneurship within the country, contributing to its dynamic economic landscape. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, made headlines by developing its R1 model using less costly hardware and a fraction of the budget traditionally used by heavyweights like OpenAI and Google. This model, built for under $6 million, demonstrates that advanced AI can be achieved without immense financial outlay or extensive infrastructure, challenging the dominance of major tech giants. The controversy surrounding DeepSeek involves allegations from OpenAI, suggesting that DeepSeek might have used data or techniques from OpenAI's models without authorization, potentially breaching intellectual property rights. This issue of data 'distillation'—where a complex model's output is used to train another model—brings up serious ethical and legal implications, especially if done without proper licensing. Leslie D’Monte explains the controversy around DeepSeek and the allegations on it. India is stepping up its game in the global AI race, aiming to develop its own foundational AI models similar to prominent models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and DeepSeek's R1. The initiative, led by Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, focuses on creating AI solutions that reflect India's linguistic and cultural diversity, promising more affordable and quicker development than current global standards. To facilitate this ambitious project, the government plans to launch a common compute facility equipped with 18,693 GPUs supplied by major domestic companies, Gulveen Aulakh reports. This facility will be accessible to startups, researchers, and developers through an online portal, ensuring broad participation and fostering innovation at various levels. This move is strategically positioned not just to foster technological advancement but also to accommodate geopolitical and economic considerations. The Good Glamm Group, previously welcomed into the unicorn club in 2021, is now facing significant financial distress as it prepares for a crucial restructuring. Expected to drastically lower its valuation, this restructuring is similar to Pharmeasy's experience in 2020 and involves raising new capital, likely at terms unfavourable to current shareholders. With existing investors like Prosus and Warburg Pincus unlikely to participate, this move could result in their stakes being wiped out completely from the company's cap table, Ranjani Raghavan writes. Amid this turmoil, three investor directors from prominent venture firms resigned last year, indicating deeper concerns about the firm's direction and the potential impacts on their reputations and other investments. As Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman finalizes her speech for the upcoming budget presentation on February 1, concerns linger over India’s economic trajectory despite its status as the world's fastest-growing large economy post-covid. After an impressive average growth of over 8% for three years, India's GDP growth slowed to 5.4% in Q2 of FY 2024-25. This deceleration, according to Sitharaman, is temporary, with expectations of recovery in upcoming quarters, although advance indicators and the RBI's revised forecast suggest a growth of just 6.6% for the year. The Modi government’s strategy has focused on public capex to stimulate growth and attract private investment, avoiding direct fiscal stimuli to prevent inflation and fiscal issues experienced post-2008 financial crisis. Yet, private investment remains sluggish, and there's debate over whether India should adjust its economic strategy. The upcoming budget may include a modest stimulus to boost consumer spending while continuing with fiscal consolidation, targeting a fiscal deficit of 4.5% by FY 2025-26. So, will the finance minister deliver a fiscal bazooka on Feb 1? N Madhavan tackles that question in today’s Long Story.
