🍎 Apple’s AI catch-up play

Good morning. Mid-week, you got this 💪 

Ruchirr Sharma & Shatakshi Sharmaa  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 🍎 Apple’s AI catch-up play

• 📈 NaBFID’s $1B global fundraising bet

• Bite-sized summaries

  • ⌚️ India loves its Casio

  • 🤑 GST payment pending 

• 🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

MARKETS

🇮🇳 India

• Indian markets suffered their worst day in three months as tariff fears hit sentiment. US tariff notifications, FII outflows, and a sliding rupee drove broad-based selling, with only consumer stocks showing resilience amid widespread sector losses.

🌍️ International

• US stocks rebounded. Tech and pharma stocks, led by Nvidia and Eli Lilly, powered the advance. Investors looked past political drama at the Fed, focusing instead on potential September rate cuts and key earnings reports.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

🍎 Apple’s AI catch-up play

Apple, the company famous for its “we’ll build it ourselves” mantra, might finally be loosening its grip.

Reports say Cupertino has internally debated buying two buzzy AI startups:

• Mistral (the French open-source darling valued near $10B), and

• Perplexity (the Bezos- and Nvidia-backed “answer engine” often pitched as an AI-powered Google rival).

That’s a big deal because Apple has historically been allergic to splashy acquisitions:

• While rivals like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon went on billion-dollar AI shopping sprees, Apple mostly kept to small, quiet tuck-ins.

• The status quo: Apple relied on in-house development and its tight ecosystem to stay ahead.

• The shift now: CEO Tim Cook has signaled Apple is open to larger AI deals to catch up in a race where it’s already trailing Samsung, Google, and OpenAI-powered Microsoft in rolling out AI features.

Why it matters:

• Apple’s products, iPhones, Macs, Watches, still print money, but without strong AI chops, the risk is that its ecosystem starts to feel dated.

• Mistral could supercharge Apple’s foundational AI capabilities, while Perplexity could give it a consumer-facing product to rival Google Search or ChatGPT. Together, they’d accelerate Apple’s late entry into generative AI.

The bigger picture? If Apple shifts from careful builder to aggressive buyer, it could redraw the AI landscape. For years, Big Tech’s AI race looked like a three-horse sprint (Microsoft, Google, Amazon). A bold move here could make it four, and remind everyone that Apple still knows how to change the game when it wants to.

Read more: Economic Times

LOANS

📈 NaBFID’s $1B global fundraising bet

India’s state-backed infrastructure bank is looking abroad for cash. The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), set up in 2021 to bankroll highways, power plants, and other big-ticket projects, plans to raise up to $1 billion from international markets in FY26.

Why the move? Rising borrowing costs at home. With domestic yields hardening, tapping foreign markets through bonds and external commercial borrowings could prove cheaper—though timing will depend on global conditions.

Until now, NaBFID has mostly relied on local funding. The shift to international markets signals both confidence (it just earned its first global ratings) and necessity. The institution has a pipeline worth ₹2.4 lakh crore, with nearly ₹90,000 crore expected to be disbursed soon—meaning it needs capital, and fast.

Bigger picture:

• Infrastructure financing is India’s growth engine, but the project pipeline hasn’t kept pace. NaBFID’s MD Rajkiran Rai even flagged the need for more municipal bond issuances, noting that only seven Indian cities have tapped the market so far.

• His vision? 500 cities in five years. That would be a game-changer, giving local bodies a direct line to investors instead of relying only on state coffers.

The takeaway: India wants to fund its growth not just with domestic savings, but with global capital. For international investors, NaBFID’s entry offers a new window into India’s infrastructure boom. For India, it’s a test of whether it can move from ambition to execution—because without projects, even cheap capital won’t move the needle.

Read more: Economic Times

GENERAL OVERVIEW

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

⌚️ India loves its Casio - Casio is betting big on India, calling it a key growth market with the potential to become one of its top three globally by the 2030s. The company’s watch business here is growing at 25–30% annually, fueled by rising incomes and demand from millennials. Casio is expanding both imports and locally manufactured models, having already launched 28 SKUs under its “Make in India” push. With revenue from watches crossing ₹414 crore in FY24, it plans to boost brand stores beyond its current 66, tap tier-II and III cities, and strengthen online channels, while considering setting up its own factory.

🤑 GST payment pending - Zomato parent Eternal has received fresh GST demand and penalty orders totaling ₹40.3 crore from Bengaluru tax authorities for the period July 2017–March 2020. The order cites short payment of output tax and excess input tax credit, including ₹17.19 crore in tax, ₹21.42 crore in interest, and a ₹1.71 crore penalty. Eternal said it will appeal, claiming strong legal backing and no expected financial impact. This isn’t its first run-in with tax authorities—earlier notices have exceeded ₹800 crore. Despite the setback, Eternal posted ₹7,167 crore in revenue and ₹25 crore profit in Q1 FY26.

HEADLINES

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

• Centre readies export shield as US tariffs set to hit $48 bn trade.

• ‘Gold Card’ for wealthy investors, wage test for H-1B: Trump administration’s new immigration push.

• Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announce their engagement 💍