Digital
Google Chrome starts blocking data tracking cookies
Mumbai: This is largely in line. Alphabet wanted to implement privacy measures and go completely cookie less in the next six months in June/July in a phased manner which they mentioned in their last two earning calls. Advertisers are likely to face challenges, especially in terms of conversions, as many third-party programmatic platforms heavily depend on cookies for data. Furthermore, programmatic platforms may seek to mitigate the impact by considering price hikes for their services. These shifts underscore the evolving landscape of digital advertising, posing challenges for advertisers and reshaping industry dynamics.
This move will have a threefold impact. 1) The restriction imposed on platforms for third-party data usage for advertising is expected to lead to a substantial increase in data costs. 2) The shift towards a cookie-less environment and the limited availability of third-party data for advertising is likely to drive a significant surge in e-commerce advertising spends. Advertisers are expected to increasingly favour e-commerce platforms due to their access to valuable first-party data, providing a substantial boost to advertising investments in the e-commerce sector. 3) Platforms/ad tech companies may also try to raise the prices from the advertisers to recover the high data costs.
The transition towards a cookie-less environment and potential privacy measures, especially considering the dominance of Android in the global smartphone ecosystem and Apple’s prevalence mainly in emerging nations, is expected to be a disruptive force. While Apple holds less than 10 per cent market share in emerging markets like India, the move is anticipated to reshape the landscape of digital advertising, influencing privacy standards and impacting conversion dynamics. The move is very much in line with our expectation and marks a significant change in the digital advertising landscape.
The credit of this article is attributed to Elara Capital SVP Karan Taurani.
Digital
Adani Enterprises plans $100 billion AI data centre push by 2035
Renewable-powered facilities plus $150 billion ripple effect to build $250 billion ecosystem.
MUMBAI: Adani Enterprises is plugging straight into the AI power grid and it’s bringing enough juice to light up a continent. On Tuesday, the ports-to-power conglomerate announced a staggering $100 billion investment to build renewable-energy-backed, AI-ready data centres across India by 2035, aiming to catapult the country from the sidelines into a serious contender in the global AI arena.
The plan doesn’t stop at bricks and servers. Adani estimates the move will spark an additional $150 billion in related industries, think server manufacturing, sovereign cloud platforms and more creating a $250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem over the next decade. Shares of Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) responded with enthusiasm, closing 2.7 per cent higher and topping the Nifty 50 gainers list.
Adani Enterprises chairman Gautam Adani captured the ambition in a post on X, “For decades, we imported technology. Now we are building the backbone. India will not follow the AI century. India will shape it.”
The strategy hinges on a tightly integrated model: renewable power generation, grid resilience and massive computing capacity. Adani will scale its existing 2 GW data centre footprint to 5 GW, targeting what it calls the world’s largest integrated platform (timeline not specified). Alongside, $55 billion goes into expanding renewables, including one of the planet’s biggest battery energy storage systems.
The company already has skin in the game, a partnership with Google, which committed $15 billion over five years for AI data centres, its largest-ever India investment. Adani also plans to deepen ties with Walmart-backed Flipkart for a second AI facility and is in talks with other major players for large-scale campuses nationwide.
India’s sudden AI infrastructure gold rush isn’t happening in isolation. Global giants Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are pouring money in, while home-grown heavyweights Reliance and TCS race to grab their slice. Data centres, the report notes, offer India its clearest shot at relevance in a chip-making world it has largely missed.
In a landscape where AI is the new electricity, Adani’s mega-bet is less about keeping the lights on and more about powering tomorrow’s digital empire, one renewable watt at a time. Whether the grid (and the stock market) can handle the load remains the real test.
