Business Desk mumbai

Nvidia will help train and mentor emerging deep tech startups in India as a founding member of a $2 billion investment alliance, deepening its presence in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem.

The U.S. chipmaker has joined the India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA)—a group of private equity and venture capital investors pledging $2 billion for deep tech investments —as a founding member. Deep tech startups are an umbrella term for emerging companies in semiconductors, space, AI, biotech, robotics, and energy, CNBC reported on Wednesday. The world’s most valuable company will offer technical talks and training through its Nvidia Deep Learning Institute to emerging startups in India.

Nvidia has joined Indian and U.S. investors backing the south Asian country's deep-tech startups as the group added new members and secured more than $850 million in capital commitments to close a big funding gap. Qualcomm Ventures, Activate AI, InfoEdge Ventures, Chirate Ventures and Kalaari Capital are among the new investors joining the India Deep Tech Alliance, Reuters reported.

It was launched in September with a $1 billion initial commitment to support companies in industries such as space, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and robotics. As a founding member and strategic advisor to the group, Nvidia will provide technical guidance, training and policy input to help Indian deep-tech startups adopt its AI and computing tools.

The move is the latest effort to tackle what founders and analysts describe as chronic underfunding of the research-driven startups, which struggle to draw venture capital given their long development timelines and uncertain paths to profitability.

It comes days after the Indian government launched a $12 billion initiative to spur research and development in a country that is a services giant but still trails in manufacturing. Deep-tech startup funding in India surged 78% to $1.6 billion last year, but still accounted for only about one-fifth of the $7.4 billion raised overall, according to a report by industry body Nasscom.