eNews
OpenAI hires top AI researcher Ruoming Pang from Meta
Former Meta and Apple executive joins ChatGPT maker after months of talks
SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI has hired prominent artificial-intelligence researcher Ruoming Pang from Meta, underlining the intensifying contest among big tech firms for elite AI talent.
According to The Information, which cited an OpenAI spokesperson, Pang joined the ChatGPT maker last week after leaving Meta. At Meta, he oversaw AI infrastructure at the Superintelligence Labs, the unit tasked with building next-generation advanced models.
Pang had joined Meta only around seven months ago from Apple, where he worked on artificial-intelligence initiatives. Bloomberg has reported that his compensation package at Meta was valued at more than $200 million over several years, highlighting how aggressively firms are paying to secure top researchers.
OpenAI reportedly pursued Pang for months before finalising the hire. The move comes amid a fierce recruitment drive across Silicon Valley as companies race to dominate the next phase of AI development. Multi-million-dollar pay packages, equity incentives and senior leadership roles have become routine weapons in the fight for specialists capable of building large-scale AI systems.
As generative AI adoption accelerates and model training demands ever-greater computing power, infrastructure expertise has become a prized asset. Pang’s experience in running large AI platforms is expected to strengthen OpenAI’s ability to scale its models and expand commercial offerings.
eNews
PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
