🇨🇳 China’s AI Surge

Good morning. Yesterday was Met Gala Monday and we sure had some looks. Some TLDR:

• Co-chair, LeBron James, surprisingly skipped the Met Gala due to the knee injury.

• Our very own Diljit Dosanjh served Punjabi royalty in a Maharaja look.

• Kiara Advani debuted her baby bump in custom Gaurav Gupta.

• Priyanka Chopra Jonas walked the red carpet in Olivier Rousteing with husband Nick Jonas! Fun fact - they first met at the Met of 2017 💓 

• SRK gave King Khan energy for his Met debut.

• Rihanna announced her third pregnancy 🤰 

Till next year 🗽 👋 

Ruchirr Sharma & Shatakshi Sharmaa  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 🇨🇳 China’s AI Surge

• 📈 Zomato bets big on Blinkit Bistro

• 🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

  • ☀️ Climate change to affect farmers

  • 🛳️ Zero tariffs

• 🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

• 🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

MARKETS

🇮🇳 India

• Indian markets closed higher. Gains were broad-based, led by auto, energy, and FMCG sectors, while banks lagged. Adani Ports surged 6.3%, and broader midcap and smallcap indices outperformed the main benchmarks.

🌍️ International

• US stocks snapped a nine-day winning streak as renewed global trade uncertainty weighed on sentiment. Stocks trimmed earlier losses after stronger-than-expected US service sector data, but anxiety over new tariff developments kept investors cautious.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

🇨🇳 China’s AI Surge

China is no longer playing catch-up in the global tech race - it’s pulling ahead in key areas like artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and digital platforms.

Once seen as a copycat economy, China now produces cutting-edge innovations at scale, from humanoid robots to highly capable AI models like DeepSeek.

• At the heart of this shift is China’s strategy of rapid diffusion and open-source AI.

• While American firms focus on proprietary models and monetization, Chinese companies are offering free, modifiable AI tools, accelerating adoption across industries and geographies.

• This approach is boosting China’s global influence, making its tech increasingly central to how the world works, plays, and connects.

Apps like TikTok, Temu, and Shein dominate global downloads, and Chinese electric vehicle makers like Xiaomi are outpacing even Apple in some areas. China now installs more industrial robots than all other nations combined and is pushing toward mass production of humanoids.

The U.S., despite its advantages in research and private-sector innovation, must shed the assumption of enduring dominance. Export sanctions aimed at slowing China’s progress have, ironically, strengthened its resolve. Even amid economic challenges, China’s tech sector is innovating fast, driven by fierce domestic competition and a growing pool of STEM talent.

Overall: To stay in the race, the U.S. must accelerate AI diffusion across its economy, share research more openly, and reinvest in its computing infrastructure. The AI revolution is expected to surpass even the internet in its economic impact. If global users and developers continue choosing China’s tech stack over America’s, the balance of power in innovation may shift decisively eastward.

Read more: Times of India

DELIVERY

📈 Zomato bets big on Blinkit Bistro

Zomato's parent company Eternal has officially ended its restaurant-led 10-minute food delivery pilot—Quick—marking its second failed attempt at ultra-fast food delivery. Instead, the company is doubling down on Blinkit Bistro, a vertical built on tightly controlled in-house kitchens now active across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru with over 100 locations.

Why the pivot?

• Eternal cracked logistics but couldn’t solve the bottleneck of “kitchen readiness” when relying on partner restaurants.

• The current food infrastructure isn’t built for that kind of speed. In contrast, Bistro’s owned kitchens allow better quality control and consistent prep times—key to making 15-minute delivery work.

This shift also reflects a broader move toward profitability over experimentation. Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal acknowledged on an earnings call that demand didn’t spike during the Quick pilot, and restaurant density wasn’t sufficient to support the format. Zomato’s Quick once touched 8–10% of delivery volumes—comparable to Swiggy’s Bolt, which continues to expand, now covering 500 cities.

While Swiggy partners with select restaurants for limited-menu express items, Eternal is clearly taking the QSR-inspired route—think in-house Burger King-style prep lines at scale. “No one has cracked this yet,” said Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa, but building kitchens from scratch is now seen as necessary, not optional.

Analysts point to economic caution among consumers and the high fixed costs of fast formats as headwinds. Eternal’s GOV rose 16% YoY in March but dipped slightly from the previous quarter. The decision to fold Quick suggests Eternal isn’t chasing headlines—it’s trying to protect margins in a cooling food delivery market.

Bottom line: Zomato is out of the 10-minute game, but not the fast-food race. The Blinkit Bistro bet is on controlled speed, not chaotic scale.

Read more: Economic Times

GENERAL OVERVIEW

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

☀️ Climate change to affect farmers - Climate change poses a serious threat to agriculture, with global temperatures expected to rise by 3°C by 2050, warned Dr. Anjal Prakash of the Indian School of Business. Speaking in Latur, he said rural farming communities will suffer most, facing increased droughts, storms, and erratic rainfall. Prakash urged citizens to take action against environmental degradation and emphasized the need for urgent climate-responsive planning. Former MLC Pasha Patel highlighted Maharashtra’s ‘Green Maharashtra’ initiative, aiming to plant on 21 lakh hectares, with a focus on promoting bamboo cultivation for its environmental and economic benefits through farmer awareness programmes.

🛳️ Zero tariffs - India has proposed zero tariffs on select US imports—including steel, auto parts, and pharmaceuticals—up to a specific volume, as part of ongoing trade talks aimed at finalizing a bilateral deal by fall. Beyond that limit, standard duties would resume. The offer, made during recent negotiations in Washington, seeks to accelerate an agreement before the expiration of a US tariff pause. India is also open to reviewing its Quality Control Orders (QCOs), criticized by the US as trade barriers, and has proposed a mutual recognition agreement on regulatory standards. It remains uncertain whether these proposals will be included in the final deal.

HEADLINES

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

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

• Home Ministry orders civil defence drills in multiple states as India-Pakistan tensions rise after Pahalgam attack.

• DRDO, Navy conduct successful trial of Multi-Influence Ground Mine.

• RBI goes slow in bringing back home gold from overseas vaults.

• Bangladesh owes Adani Power around $900M: CFO Dilip Jha.

• Apple India shipments grew 25% in March 2025 quarter, Vivo led smartphone market.

• AI brings pain and promise: Salesforce chief sees rise of new job roles in India and beyond.

CULTURE

🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

• Met Gala 2025 - all the looks!

• Trump’s movie tariffs plan catches Hollywood off guard.

• IPL 2025: Rain halts DC vs SRH match. Leaderboard here.