It's a wrap: News this week (Aug 2-8)

There have been multiple developments this week on the tech front. From GPT-5 launch to IT transformation deals, here is a list of the most important updates for a quick catch-up:

Autodesk to offer local data storage for India

Design software maker Autodesk announced that it will offer localised storage in India. It will allow its customers to store and manage their project data locally, especially in regulated sectors such as government, infrastructure, and utilities.

Our Autodesk regional offerings are supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS). To be sure, AWS has two regions in India: Asia Pacific (Mumbai) and Asia Pacific (Hyderabad). Beyond India, Autodesk will be leveraging AWS’s global infrastructure across the UK, Germany, Japan, and Canada.

Customers can now choose India as their primary project data storage region when using Autodesk Docs, Autodesk BIM Collaborate, and Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro.

TCS grabs 5 yrs transformation deal from US-based firm

Tata Consultancy Services has secured a five-year renewal and expansion of its contract with Weatherford International. Under this partnership, TCS will leverage its expertise in automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital optimisation to drive enterprise-wide business transformation initiatives for the North America-based oilfield service company.

The partnership will focus on enhancing operational efficiencies across critical domains such as finance, supply chains, and human resources. TCS plans to introduce advanced AI-driven solutions to streamline Weatherford’s finance and accounting processes, reduce costs, and improve scalability. Additionally, TCS will advise Weatherford in simplifying workflows, fostering innovation, and enabling outcome-based strategies.

Airtel’s digital arm launches sovereign platform for telcos

Xtelify, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel for digital assets and capabilities, has launched a sovereign, telco-grade platform. Called Airtel Cloud, it can handle 140 crore transactions per minute for Airtel’s own in India.

Airtel Cloud is hosted on sustainable data centres with generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) provisioning. It will be managed by 300 certified cloud experts, offering Infrastructure-as-a-Services (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and advanced connectivity, guaranteeing secure migration, effortless scaling, lower costs, and no vendor lock-ins.

Infosys launches advanced AI centre in Hubballi

Infosys on Wednesday launched its Infosys Centre for Advanced AI, Cybersecurity, and Space Technology at its Hubballi Development Centre in Karnataka. This new centre is part of ‘Infosys Living Labs’ – a network of over 12 established centres globally designed to help clients accelerate innovation and leverage emerging technologies.

This development is said to establish Hubballi as a key technology hub for Infosys, specialising in advanced digital solutions like AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, engineering services, SAP, and space technology. The centre will serve clients globally across industries, including manufacturing, financial services, retail, and healthcare.

With over 1,000 employees working out of the Hubballi DC, Infosys said, it will build industry-ready talent and foster inclusive growth in Karnataka.

Ex-Intel architect Raja Koduri launches chip startup OXMIQ Labs

Raja Koduri, the former chief architect and executive vice president of Intel's architecture, graphics and software division, on Tuesday, announced the launch of OXMIQ Labs Inc., a new GPU software and hardware IP startup. The company aims to re-architect GPUs for the multimodal AI era, where text, images, audio, video, and 3D worlds work together seamlessly.

After two years of intensive IP development, Koduri assembled a world-class team of GPU and AI architects with over 500 years of combined experience, hundreds of patents, and a collective track record of generating more than $100B in revenue at prior companies.

Krutrim partners with Cloudera to support AI, data workloads in India

Krutrim, an Indian sovereign cloud platform focused on AI infrastructure, has partnered with Cloudera, a hybrid data platform company, to deliver large-scale data and AI solutions for enterprise use. As part of this collaboration, Krutrim is using Cloudera’s data and AI capabilities to power analytics and data lake workloads on its cloud infrastructure. Ola is the first major enterprise to adopt the solution, which will soon be offered to other businesses in India.

The integration of Cloudera’s platform enables Krutrim to support data engineering, model training, and inference at scale. These capabilities are intended to help Indian enterprises improve operational efficiency and generate faster insights from diverse and high-volume data sources.

OpenAI launches GPT-5

OpenAI launched GPT-5 this week. Built on the GPT-4o (omni) architecture, it integrates text, image, and audio processing, enabling richer multimodal interactions. GPT-5 offers improved reasoning, coding ability, and multi-turn conversation handling, making it more coherent and context-aware over longer dialogues. Its architecture allows for faster responses and more efficient performance, with a focus on real-time applications, the company said.

Trained using reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), GPT-5 supports autonomous or semi-autonomous agentic behavior, enabling it to perform tasks with minimal human intervention. The model powers advanced features in ChatGPT, such as Code Interpreter and Voice Mode, especially in the Plus and Pro tiers.