The image of the week for me was of the Englishman in Hyde Park’s speaker’s corner speaking with a very English accent, waving an Indian flag in one hand and sipping a drink in the other, facing a tirade of shouting Pakistanis. One man, the son of St George, just using British liberties to say he supports India, a fellow liberal secular democracy and not the theocratic home of terror which is Pakistan. As I’ve written here many times before and stated on the BBC, I worked in the US Congress when my Congressman was lobbying the US State Department and White House to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state. And I can tell that was not with any support of the Indian Embassy in Washington (they didn’t have a lobbying budget back then). Anyway, 15 years later Bin Laden was found in Pakistan. Point proven. It was work. My job for Hon Eliot Engel.
Moving on to the UK India Free Trade Agreement, if as is reported it happens very soon, then I expect the UK PM will be in India to hail it and officially sign it. Perhaps a trip to Kashmir too?
One area I work on is AI and my recent visit to the US and India fills me with joy.
AI on the Indo-British Innovation Highway: How Indian Capital is Powering UK Artificial Intelligence
Start with the money. Indian IT giant Wipro set the tone in 2021 with a $1.45 billion acquisition of Capco, a London-based fintech consultancy. The deal was no vanity purchase—it gave Wipro instant access to Europe’s top-tier financial clients and a significant AI-driven consulting footprint. By marrying Wipro’s engineering muscle with Capco’s domain expertise, the deal created a potent force in digital banking, analytics, and automated decision-making.
Next, Tech Mahindra—another Indian heavyweight—acquired boutique UK e-commerce firm We Make Websites in a £9.4 million deal to sharpen its AI-powered customer experience offerings. Add in a smattering of £10–£50 million investments from mid-tier Indian players like Mphasis, HCL, and CtrlS, and the picture becomes clearer: the UK is the new AI R&D sandbox for Indian IT.
Then there’s TCS, India’s largest tech firm, partnering with Scotland’s National Robotarium. Their joint research initiative is tackling real-world challenges in soft robotics, human-robot interaction, and AI for healthcare—bringing together TCS’s global reach with the UK’s university-led innovation engine. No cash changed hands in an M&A sense, but the partnership is arguably more valuable: it exemplifies how shared R&D can become a force multiplier for both economies.
AI’s footprint in Indo-UK collaboration isn’t limited to boardrooms. The UK-India bilateral innovation framework, refreshed in 2023, saw both governments pledge over £16 million in joint R&D funds—explicitly earmarked for artificial intelligence, responsible tech, and data-driven healthcare. This includes an STFC-led programme on AI skills development, co-funded by India’s Department of Atomic Energy.
Why the AI focus? For India, the UK offers access to cutting-edge research institutions, a sandbox regulatory environment, and a gateway to Europe. For the UK, Indian firms bring not just capital but scale—huge development teams, real-world deployment experience, and increasingly, venture capital for British AI startups. It’s not just outsourcing anymore; it’s co-development.
Consider Serum Institute of India, which committed £240 million to the UK to fund AI-enabled medical drone R&D and vaccine trials. Or the BP–Infosys partnership, where British energy know-how meets Indian AI to tackle sustainability and net-zero goals.
This isn’t a one-way street. The UK is keen to learn from India’s data-led approaches to public health and fintech. Meanwhile, the nascent UK-India AI Partnership is shaping how both nations think about ethics, regulation, and cross-border AI deployment.
The AI bridge between London and Bengaluru is no longer theoretical. It’s being built, deal by deal, code by code. In a world where tech is geopolitics, the Indo-UK AI alliance may turn out to be far more consequential than tariffs or trade barriers. The future of intelligence—artificial and strategic—might just have a curry-and-crumpet flavour.
The one solitary man waving the Indian flag in Hyde Park’s Speaker’s corner actually speaks for thousands of us in the UK flying the British and Indian flags together. We make this relationship soar. The ‘other side’ from across the border makes it sore.