Trump could cost 150,000 truckers their jobs — and they're all from one minority group

(REUTERS)

Matthew Rozsa

February 26, 2026

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump called for Congress to pass the so-called “Dalilah Law” requiring commercial drivers licenses to only go to legal residents — and in the process continued the MAGA movement’s targeting of the Sikh community.

"Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs," Trump said during his Tuesday night State of the Union message. "That's why tonight, I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the 'Dalilah Law,' barring any state from granting commercial drivers licenses to illegal aliens."

From bus drivers and over-the-road semi-trailer drivers to RV delivery haulers, America has 3.5 million licensed truckers, and the American Trucking Associations trade group (37,000-members strong) supports Trump’s efforts to both enforce immigration laws and “ensure that only properly trained, fully qualified, and English-proficient drivers are behind the wheel of 80,000-pound commercial motor vehicles.” Yet Trump’s approach may also target a group that MAGA repeatedly puts in its sites — Sikhs

“Among the strongest critics of the measures are India-born Sikhs, who make up about 150,000 members of the trucking community, according to regulatory data,” reported USA Today’s Trevor Hughes. “Tens of thousands of Sikhs sought asylum in the United States during the Biden presidency, many of them crossing the Mexican border without advance permission.” The article also pointed out that for thousands of people “the crackdown on foreign drivers would cause them to lose their jobs and homes in one fell swoop ‒ many truckers live in their semis” and simultaneously increase “freight costs from American consumers.”

The White House has often singled out Sikh truck drivers, in particular a California-licensed Sikh driver named Harjinder Singh was involved in a fatal August crash in Florida that killed three people. Trump officials claim Singh was in America illegally and did not speak English well enough to qualify for his license. Sikhs For Justice, a US-based group, donated $100,000 to the victims in the accident Singh is accused of causing.

Others in the Trump movement have expressed prejudice against Sikhs. In June Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) misidentified a Sikh man as Muslim and argued that he should not have been allowed to pray on the House of Representatives floor because he is not a Christian.

“It’s deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning,” Miller said. “This should have never been allowed to happen. America was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth, not drift further…”

Miller later posted a version that swapped the word “Sikh” for “Muslim.” Miller’s target was Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey who had been “welcomes” to deliver the prayer by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ).

FBI director Kash Patel has also been targeted by xenophobia. When he wished his followers a Happy Diwali on X (Diwali is celebrated by Sikhs, some Buddhists, Jains and Hindus), far-right Christian and white nationalists attacked Patel online. Diwali greetings were similarly attacked when expressed by Indian American Trump officials like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.

P3

COMMENT: India's healthcare model evolves as private capital reshapes access

/ Jannes Jacobs - Unsplash

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By bno Chennai Office February 19, 2026

India’s healthcare sector is drawing increasing investor attention as rising incomes, urbanisation and expanding insurance coverage fuel demand for hospital services, diagnostics and specialised treatment.

Private capital inflows across the country have accelerated alongside these structural drivers, positioning healthcare in India as a defensive growth segment within emerging markets.

Yet the same financial dynamics that attract investment are also intensifying scrutiny over its affordability and access. In India’s healthcare landscape, out of pocket spending remains a heavy cost, capable of bankrupting average households according to an article by Vivek Nenmini Dileep in the Global Health Journal.

Healthcare spending in India continues to expand faster than overall economic growth, supported by demographic pressures, a growing burden of chronic disease and also rising expectations of quality care.

As a result, private providers now account for a dominant share of service delivery, particularly in urban areas, where corporate hospital chains and related diagnostic networks have scaled rapidly. Investors thus view the sector as resilient to economic cycles given persistent demand for medical services and a relatively low penetration level compared with developed economies.

Added to this, the growing presence of private equity has played a central role in shaping industry structure. Funds have channelled capital into hospital platforms, specialty clinics and also health technology ventures, pursuing consolidation in a fragmented market.

Investment strategies typically focus on expanding bed capacity while enhancing high-margin services and building referral networks that help capture patient flows across regions. Such models can improve operational efficiency and infrastructure, while also enabling pricing strategies that support targeted returns within defined investment horizons.

This financial transformation has in turn coincided with rising treatment costs. Hospitalisation charges in major metropolitan areas have increased steadily of late, reflecting capital expenditure on advanced equipment as well as specialist staffing and premium facilities.

Industry observers note that pricing power has also strengthened for large corporate providers operating in markets with limited competition. Smaller independent facilities often struggle to match the ubiquitous presence, scale, branding and most noticeably technology investments backed by institutional capital.

As such, India’s policymakers have responded with regulatory and welfare measures intended to expand access and moderate cost pressures. India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare oversees public health infrastructure and national insurance initiatives designed to reduce financial barriers for lower-income households.

At present, India’s flagship publicly funded insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, provide cashless hospital treatment for eligible beneficiaries through empanelled public and private providers.

However, despite the government’s welfare programmes, dissenting voices in the Indian parliament have raised a number of questions over the optimal utilisation and cost of service to the beneficiaries. Certain specific examples cited are philanthropic ventures by private individuals.

These philanthropists have far smaller capital than that the Government of India can muster from its coffers - or has the ability to absorb the deficit of. Yet these private individuals, although only in a single location at any given time, provide access to advanced services like CT-Scans and other forms of capital intensive medical machine imaging at less than $1 to the needy.

However, in aggregate, government programmes have expanded utilisation of hospital services among these economically vulnerable groups and strengthened preventive care delivery through primary health centres.

India’s National Health Authority administers insurance coverage and reimbursement mechanisms intended to integrate private providers into existing publicly financed care networks.

Public health campaigns focused on maternal health, vaccination and disease surveillance meanwhile, have contributed to measurable improvements in a range of key health indicators over the past decade. Despite these interventions, structural gaps persist. Insurance coverage remains uneven, and many households continue to bear substantial out-of-pocket expenses for outpatient consultations, diagnostics and in the end, pharmaceuticals. There is also a coverage gap affecting individuals whose incomes exceed eligibility thresholds for public schemes but remain insufficient for comprehensive private insurance.

This cohort represents a significant share of India’s population and it faces heightened exposure to healthcare-related financial risk. Implementation challenges further complicate access in some regions. Variations in administrative capacity across the different states influence reimbursement timelines, provider participation and infrastructure quality.

Reports of delayed payments to hospitals and inconsistencies in eligibility verification have affected service delivery under a range of publicly funded programmes. In areas with limited regulatory oversight too, disparities in pricing transparency and billing practices remain a concern for policymakers seeking to strengthen consumer protection.

Healthcare access disparities are particularly pronounced in India's more rural and economically disadvantaged regions. Public facilities in these areas often face staffing shortages, equipment constraints and supply disruptions affecting essential medicines reaching patients.

When public services are unavailable or insufficient, patients have no choice but to turn to private providers where treatment costs may exceed household financial capacity. Economists say this dynamic contributes to a degree of medical indebtedness and asset liquidation among lower-income families.

The interplay between private capital and public policy therefore continues to shape sector evolution. Investors have supported expansion of telemedicine platforms, digital health records and specialised treatment centres, reflecting growing interest in scalable service models, and these developments have improved access in some underserved areas by extending consultation networks and reducing travel requirements for patients.

However, adoption remains uneven due to infrastructure constraints and disparities in digital literacy. In several of its policy communiques, India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has emphasised the importance of sustainable credit growth and financial stability as healthcare financing expands. In turn, banking system exposure to hospital operators and healthcare service providers has increased alongside sector growth.

Market participants are monitoring asset quality trends and leverage levels among healthcare companies as investment activity continues, and policy discussions increasingly focus on balancing investment incentives with equitable access.

Health economists advocate expanding public financing for primary and outpatient care to reduce reliance on high-cost hospital treatment. Others highlight the need for stronger regulatory frameworks governing pricing transparency, quality standards and insurance reimbursement practices.

India’s Ministry of Finance has indicated that healthcare infrastructure investment remains a priority within broader development planning. Long-term demand fundamentals remain supportive of sector expansion.

And with India’s population ageing trajectory, rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases and continued urban migration are expected to sustain healthcare utilisation growth.

Projections to this end indicate that private providers will thus continue to play a significant role in meeting capacity requirements, particularly in specialised and tertiary care segments. For investors, and because of this, the sector presents both opportunity and policy risk.

Continued private equity participation may accelerate consolidation and operational modernisation, while regulatory intervention could influence pricing dynamics and returns. Yet market observers say the trajectory of public financing reforms and insurance expansion will be critical in determining the balance between profitability and accessibility.

As India seeks to expand healthcare capacity while addressing affordability concerns, the interaction between state policy and private investment will remain a defining feature of the industry’s evolution. As such, the sector’s ability to align commercial incentives with public health objectives is likely to shape investor sentiment and long-term growth prospects.

UN touts panel for 'human control' of AI at global summit

Katie Forster
Fri, February 20, 2026 


India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C), Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (centre L) and France's President Emmanuel Macron (centre R) and other world leaders and representatives at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026 (Stephane LEMOUTON)(Stephane LEMOUTON/POOL/AFP)More

A UN panel on artificial intelligence will work towards "science-led governance", the global body's chief said Friday as leaders at a New Delhi summit weighed their message on the future of the booming technology.

But the US delegation warned against centralised control of the generative AI field, highlighting the difficulties of reaching consensus over how it should be handled.

The flip side of the gold rush surrounding AI is a host of issues from job disruption to misinformation, intensified surveillance, online abuse and the heavy electricity consumption of data centres.

"We are barrelling into the unknown," UN chief Antonio Guterres told the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. "The message is simple: less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence."

To cap the five-day summit, dozens of world leaders and ministers are expected to deliver on Friday a shared view on the benefits of AI, such as instant translation and drug discovery, but also the risks.

It is the fourth annual global meeting focused on AI policy, with the next to take place in Geneva in the first half of 2027.

Guterres said the United Nations General Assembly has confirmed 40 members for a group called the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.

It was created in August, aiming to be to AI what the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to global environmental policy.

"Science-led governance is not a brake on progress," Guterres said. "When we understand what systems can do -- and what they cannot -- we can move from rough measures to smarter, risk-based guardrails."

"Our goal is to make human control a technical reality -- not a slogan."

White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios, head of the US delegation, warned that "AI adoption cannot lead to a brighter future if it is subject to bureaucracies and centralised control".

"As the Trump administration has now said many times: We totally reject global governance of AI," he said.


- 'Shared language' -

The Delhi gathering is the largest AI summit yet, and the first in a developing country, with India taking the opportunity to push its ambitions to catch up with the United States and China.

India expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, and this week US tech titans unveiled a raft of new deals and infrastructure projects in the country.

Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has called for oversight in the past but said last year that taking too tight an approach could hold the United States back in the AI race.

"Centralisation of this technology, in one company or country, could lead to ruin," he said Thursday, one of several top tech CEOs to take the stage.

"This is not to suggest that we won't need any regulation or safeguards. We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies."

The broad focus of the summit, and vague promises made at its previous editions in France, South Korea and Britain, could make concrete commitments unlikely.

Even so, "governance of powerful technologies typically begins with shared language: what risks matter, what thresholds are unacceptable," Niki Iliadis, director of global AI governance at The Future Society, told AFP.

Discussions at the Delhi summit, attended by tens of thousands of people from across the AI industry, have covered big topics from child protections to the need for more equal access to AI tools worldwide.

"We must resolve that AI is used for the global common good," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the event on Thursday.

Urgent research needed to tackle AI threats, says Google AI boss

Zoe Kleinman - Technology editor;

 Philippa Wain - technology producer

BBC
Fri, February 20, 2026 


Sir Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind spoke to the BBC at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi [Getty Images]


More research on the threats of artificial intelligence (AI) "needs to be done urgently", the boss of Google DeepMind has told BBC News.

In an exclusive interview at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, Sir Demis Hassabis said the industry wanted "smart regulation" for "the real risks" posed by the tech.

Many tech leaders and politicians at the Summit have called for more global governance of AI, ahead of an expected joint statement as the event draws to a close.

But the US has rejected this stance, with White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios saying: "AI adoption cannot lead to a brighter future if it is subject to bureaucracies and centralised control."

Sir Demis said it was important to build "robust guardrails" against the most serious threats from the rise of autonomous systems.

He said the two main threats were the technology being used by "bad actors", and the risk of losing control of systems as they become more powerful.

When asked whether he had the power to slow down the progress of the tech to give experts more time to work on its challenges, he said his firm had an important role to play, but was "only one player in the ecosystem".

But he admitted keeping up with the pace of AI development was "the hard thing" for regulators.

Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, also called for "urgent regulation" in a speech at the AI Summit, while Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi said countries had to work together to benefit from AI.

However, the US has taken the opposite view. "As the Trump administration has now said many times: We totally reject global governance of AI," said the head of the US delegation Michael Kratsios.

Sir Demis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024 [BBC]

Delegates from more than 100 countries, including several world leaders, are attending the event. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy MP represented the UK government.

Mr Lammy said the power wasn't just with tech firms when it came to safety of AI and politicians need to work "hand in hand" with tech adding, "security and safety must come first and it must be of benefit for the wider public".

Sir Demis believes the US and the west are "slightly" ahead in the race with China for AI dominance but added that it could be "only a matter of months" before China catches up.

He said he felt the responsibility to balance being "bold and responsible" about deploying AI systems out in the world.

"We don't always get things right," he admitted, "but we get it more correct than most".
Science education 'still very important'

In the next 10 years the tech would become "a superpower" in terms of what people would be able to create, Sir Demis, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said.

"I think it's still very important to have a Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) education," he added.

"If you have a technical background, I think it will still be an advantage in using these systems."

He thinks AI writing code would open up the number of people who could build new applications, "and then maybe the key thing becomes taste and creativity and judgement".

The AI Impact Summit is the largest ever global gathering of world leaders and tech bosses.

It ends on Friday with companies and countries expected to deliver a shared view of how to handle artificial intelligence.

‘I’m deeply uncomfortable’: Anthropic CEO warns that a cadre of AI leaders, including himself, should not be in charge of the technology’s future

Sasha Rogelberg
Thu, February 19, 2026 
FORTUNE

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei(Chance Yeh—Getty Images for HubSpot)

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei doesn’t think he should be the one calling the shots on the guardrails surrounding AI.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS News’ 60 Minutes that aired in November 2025, the CEO said AI should be more heavily regulated, with fewer decisions about the future of the technology left to just the heads of big tech companies.

“I think I’m deeply uncomfortable with these decisions being made by a few companies, by a few people,” Amodei said. “And this is one reason why I’ve always advocated for responsible and thoughtful regulation of the technology.

“Who elected you and Sam Altman?” Cooper asked.

“No one. Honestly, no one,” Amodei replied.

Anthropic has adopted the philosophy of being transparent about the limitations—and dangers—of AI as it continues to develop, he added. Ahead of the interview’s release, the company said it had thwarted “the first documented case of a large-scale AI cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention.”

Anthropic said last week it had donated $20 million to Public First Action, a super PAC focused on AI safety and regulation—and one that directly opposed super PACs backed by rival OpenAI’s investors.

“AI safety continues to be the highest-level focus,” Amodei told Fortune in a January cover story. “Businesses value trust and reliability,” he says.

There are no federal regulations outlining any prohibitions on AI or surrounding the safety of the technology. While all 50 states have introduced AI-related legislation this year and 38 have adopted or enacted transparency and safety measures, tech industry experts have urged AI companies to approach cybersecurity with a sense of urgency.

Earlier last year, cybersecurity expert and Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia warned of the first AI-agent cybersecurity attack happening in the next 12 to 18 months—meaning Anthropic’s disclosure about the thwarted attack was months ahead of Mandia’s predicted schedule.

Amodei has outlined short-, medium-, and long-term risks associated with unrestricted AI: The technology will first present bias and misinformation, as it does now. Next, it will generate harmful information using enhanced knowledge of science and engineering, before finally presenting an existential threat by removing human agency, potentially becoming too autonomous and locking humans out of systems.

The concerns mirror those of “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, who has warned AI will have the ability to outsmart and control humans, perhaps in the next decade.

The need for greater AI scrutiny and safeguards lay at the core of Anthropic’s 2021 founding. Amodei was previously the vice president of research at Sam Altman’s OpenAI. He left the company over differences in opinion on AI safety concerns. (So far, Amodei’s efforts to compete with Altman have appeared effective: Anthropic said this month it is now valued at $380 billion. OpenAI is valued at an estimated $500 billion.)

“There was a group of us within OpenAI, that in the wake of making GPT-2 and GPT-3, had a kind of very strong focus belief in two things,” Amodei told Fortune in 2023. “One was the idea that if you pour more compute into these models, they’ll get better and better and that there’s almost no end to this … And the second was the idea that you needed something in addition to just scaling the models up, which is alignment or safety.”

Anthropic’s transparency efforts

As Anthropic continues to expand its data center investments, it has published some of its efforts in addressing the shortcomings and threats of AI. In a May 2025 safety report, Anthropic reported some versions of its Opus model threatened blackmail, such as revealing an engineer was having an affair, to avoid shutting down. The company also said the AI model complied with dangerous requests if given harmful prompts like how to plan a terrorist attack, which it said it has since fixed.

Last November, the company said in a blog post that its chatbot Claude scored a 94% political evenhandedness rating, outperforming or matching competitors on neutrality.

In addition to Anthropic’s own research efforts to combat corruption of the technology, Amodei has called for greater legislative efforts to address the risks of AI. In a New York Times op-ed in June 2025, he criticized the Senate’s decision to include a provision in President Donald Trump’s policy bill that would put a 10-year moratorium on states regulating AI.

“AI is advancing too head-spinningly fast,” Amodei said. “I believe that these systems could change the world, fundamentally, within two years; in 10 years, all bets are off.”
Criticism of Anthropic

Anthropic’s practice of calling out its own lapses and efforts to address them has drawn criticism. In response to Anthropic sounding the alarm on the AI-powered cybersecurity attack, Meta’s then–chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said the warning was a way to manipulate legislators into limiting the use of open-source models.

“You’re being played by people who want regulatory capture,” LeCun said in an X post in response to Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy’s post expressing concern about the attack. “They are scaring everyone with dubious studies so that open-source models are regulated out of existence.”

Others have said Anthropic’s strategy is one of “safety theater” that amounts to good branding but offers no promises to actually implement safeguards on the technology.

Even some of Anthropic’s own personnel appear to have doubts about a tech company’s ability to regulate itself. Earlier last week, Anthropic AI safety researcher Mrinank Sharma announced he had resigned from the company, saying, “The world is in peril.”

“Throughout my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,” Sharma wrote in his resignation letter. “I’ve seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society, too.”

Anthropic did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Amodei denied to Cooper that Anthropic was taking part in “safety theater” but admitted on an episode of the Dwarkesh Podcast last week that the company sometimes struggles to balance safety and profits.

“We’re under an incredible amount of commercial pressure and make it even harder for ourselves because we have all this safety stuff we do that I think we do more than other companies,” he said.

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Nov. 17, 2025.
More on AI regulation:

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 20,000-word essay on how AI ‘will test’ humanity is a must-read—but more for his remedies than his warnings


America’s AI regulatory patchwork is crushing startups and helping China


AI could trigger a global jobs market collapse by 2027 if left unchecked, former Google ethicist warns


Sam Altman says the quiet part out loud, confirming some companies are ‘AI washing’ by blaming unrelated layoffs on the technology

Sasha Rogelberg
Thu, February 19, 2026
FORTUNE


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said “AI washing” is a reality for some companies, but real displacement from the technology is on its way.

Prakash Singh—Bloomberg/Getty Images

As debate continues over AI’s true impact on the labor force, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said some companies are engaging in “AI washing” when it comes to layoffs, or falsely attributing workforce reductions to the technology’s impact.

“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs,” Altman told CNBC-TV18 at the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday.

AI washing has gained traction as emerging data on the tech’s impact on the labor market tells a muddied, inconclusive story about how the technology is destroying human jobs—or if it has yet to touch them.

A study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, found that of thousands of surveyed C-suite executives across the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Australia, nearly 90% said AI had no impact on workplace employment over the past three years following the late-2022 release of ChatGPT.

However, prominent tech leaders like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have warned of a white-collar bloodbath, with AI potentially wiping out 50% of entry-level office jobs. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski suggested this week the buy-now, pay-later firm would reduce its 3,000-person workforce by one-third by 2030 in part because of the acceleration of AI. Around 40% of employers expect to follow Siemiatkowski’s lead in culling staff down the line as a result of AI, according to the 2025 World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report.

Altman clarified he anticipates more job displacement as a result of AI, as well as the emergence of new roles complementing the technology.

“We’ll find new kinds of jobs, as we do with every tech revolution,” he said. “But I would expect that the real impact of AI doing jobs in the next few years will begin to be palpable.

Signs of AI washing

Data from a recent Yale Budget Lab report suggests Altman and Amodei’s vision of mass worker displacement from AI is not certain and is not yet here. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, the research found no significant differences in the rate of change of occupations’ mix or length of unemployment for individuals with jobs that have high exposure to AI from the release of ChatGPT through November 2025. The numbers suggested no significant AI-related labor changes at this juncture.

“No matter which way you look at the data, at this exact moment, it just doesn’t seem like there’s major macroeconomic effects here,” Martha Gimbel, executive director and cofounder of the Yale Budget Lab, told Fortune earlier this month.

Gimbel attributed the practice of AI washing to companies passing off diminished margins and revenue from a failure to effectively navigate cautious consumers and geopolitical tensions to AI. WebAI cofounder and CEO David Stout also wrote in a commentary piece for Fortune that tech founders are facing increased pressure to justify exorbitant and continued investment in AI, which is the reason why many have created narratives of AI disrupting labor and the economy through predictions of mass worker displacement.

This era of toe-tapping in wait for the effects of AI to take hold rhymes with the 1980s IT boom, according to Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok. Nearly 40 years ago, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow observed little productivity gains in the PC age, despite prognostications of a productivity surge, and Slok sees a similar pattern today.

“AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data,” he wrote in a blog post last week

Evidence of AI’s impact on jobs

Slok also said this lull in AI-driven economic impact could follow a J-curve of an initial slowdown in performance obscured by early mass spending before an exponential surge in productivity and labor changes.

Economist and Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab director Erik Brynjolfsson said in a Financial Times op-ed recent labor data may be telling a new story of AI indeed impacting productivity and labor. He noted a decoupling of job growth and GDP growth reflected in the latest revised job numbers: Last week’s jobs report revised down job gains to just 181,000, despite fourth-quarter GDP tracking up 3.7%. Brynjolfsson’s own analysis revealed a 2.7% year-over-year productivity jump last year, which he attributed to AI’s productivity benefits beginning to peek through.

Brynjolfsson published a landmark study last year showing a 13% relative decline in employment for early-career employees with jobs with high levels of AI exposure. Most experienced workers, meanwhile, saw employment levels that remained stable or grew.

“The updated 2025 U.S. data suggests we are now transitioning out of this investment phase into a harvest phase,” he wrote in the FT, “where those earlier efforts begin to manifest as measurable output.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Modi's AI unity pose turns awkward for Altman and Amodei

By Munsif Vengattil
Thu, February 19, 2026 

REUTERS

NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (Reuters) - When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi nudged speakers at the India AI summit ‌to join and raise their hands in a symbolic show ‌of unity, most executives obliged. Two did not: rivals Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario ​Amodei of Anthropic.

The two, who are locked in one of Silicon Valley's fiercest commercial rivalries, were standing side by side as the 13 corporate leaders joined Modi on stage, but they kept their raised fists conspicuously ‌apart.

Altman appeared visibly uncomfortable, looking ⁠away as the others, including Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, went along with Modi's nudge and joined hands.

The episode, captured ⁠on camera and widely shared across social media, drew amused and pointed reactions online, with many users describing it as emblematic of the "AI cold war" ​between ​OpenAI and Anthropic.

"I didn't know what ​was happening on stage. I ‌wasn't sure what we were supposed to be doing," Altman later told news website Moneycontrol.

OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Bill Gates pulled out of India's summit hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing a blow to a flagship event already ‌marred by organisational lapses, a robot row ​and complaints of traffic chaos.

However, the summit ​has attracted more than $200 billion ​in investment pledges.

Anthropic was co-founded in 2021 by Dario ‌Amodei and other former OpenAI ​employees who broke away ​over disagreements about safety, commercialisation, and Altman's leadership style.

The rift has since hardened into a full-blown commercial war.

At this year's Super ​Bowl, Anthropic aired satirical ‌commercials taking a pointed jab at OpenAI's plans to introduce ​advertising inside ChatGPT.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing ​by Aditya Kalra and Kate Mayberry)


Modi’s Chaotic AI Summit Showed India’s Clout and Constraints

Sankalp Phartiyal
Fri, February 20, 2026

BLOOMBERG

Photographer: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his pitch this week that India can play a leading role in the artificial intelligence boom with a conference featuring tech stars from around the world. It suffered more than a few hitches.

Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang dropped out after early promotion; Bill Gates withdrew later. Many attendees ran into trouble just getting into the grand Bharat Mandapam venue in New Delhi on Monday and logistics remained an ordeal all week. Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, had so much trouble getting through security that his speech — announcing the biggest deal of the India AI Impact Summit — was delayed.

Even so, Modi gave a forceful demonstration of the country’s influence. He gathered many of the most prominent names in the tech industry, including the chief executives of Alphabet Inc., OpenAI and Anthropic PBC, as well as the India-born CEOs of global corporate icons like FedEx Corp. The prime day of the summit was so jam-packed that celebrity leaders like Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman were allocated a mere five to 12 minutes each.

“It’s one thing to say you’re the leader of the Global South and it’s another to come across as the leader of the Global South,” said Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia risk insights at advisory firm Verisk Maplecroft. “They’ve achieved what they wanted to achieve.”

The event mixed moments of genuine promise with evidence of India’s constraints as the global AI race accelerates. Similar to US President Donald Trump, Modi is able to elicit effusive praise and big promises from industry and government leaders, with Ambani pledging $110 billion for building out artificial intelligence projects across India over the next seven years. Speakers constantly praised the prime minister for his leadership and referred to him in the honorific, Shri Narendra Modi Ji.

But the country still lags in high-end computing infrastructure that’s necessary to build frontier large language models such as those produced by Silicon Valley companies or the coterie of Chinese upstarts that now sit atop many AI benchmark lists. Even the most efficient AI systems require tens of billions of dollars to build and operate, in a capital-intensive contest that US Big Tech in recent weeks escalated with plans for $650 billion in new spending in 2026.

The fight for artificial intelligence supremacy is between open versus closed systems rather than where those systems are built, according to Mistral AI’s chief executive officer, Arthur Mensch.Source: Bloomberg

Modi used the summit to argue for a model of AI development that sits in the middle lane between the corporate-led ecosystem of the US and state-backed China push. At the summit’s busiest day, inclusion and human-centered design took center stage.

“We have talent, energy capacity and policy clarity,” the PM said in Hindi, translated via AI into various languages. “AI is like GPS. It can show the direction, but where we want to go must be decided by us.”

He positioned India as the tech leader of the Global South — emerging economies, often previously colonized — that are eager to deploy AI but wary of aligning with one tech bloc or another. UN Secretary-General António Guterres reinforced that message, as did French President Emmanuel Macron, who sat alongside Modi at the gala with the ease of a longtime friend.

“The future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires,” said Guterres.

The unifying message was that countries beyond the US and China want to be more than potential markets for AI companies. They want access to the best technologies, influence over regulation and the opportunity to share in the potential profits.

“India is trying to sort of set its terms,” said Bhattacharya. “The risk is India becoming this data colony for big tech where the proprietary, the value-added services are done elsewhere.”

One advantage the country has is the deep expertise of IT service firms like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Infosys Ltd., leaders in helping the world’s corporations adopt new technologies like cloud computing and mobile services. They are now working with partners like Anthrophic and OpenAI to use their armies of consultants to help companies figure out how to use AI.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Group, said on stage he sees the integration of AI and AI agents as a big opportunity for IT providers because of their understanding of the needs and opportunities for large-scale customers.

Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind CEO, and James Manyika, Google’s Senior Vice President, on AI’s risks and potential.Source: Bloomberg

US companies, for their part, are accelerating expansion in India before local rivals catch up. Anthropic this week opened an office in the southern tech hub of Bangalore, while OpenAI is expanding operations following last year’s New Delhi launch.

“I was last here a little over a year ago, and it’s striking how much progress has happened since then,” Altman said on Thursday. India is the fastest-growing market for OpenAI’s Codex coding tool, he added, after Anthropic’s Dario Amodei had earlier said his company’s Claude Code had doubled its local users over the past four months.

“It’s important to move quickly. On our current trajectory, we believe we may be only a couple of years away from early versions of true superintelligence,” Altman, 40, said. The Tata Group, maker of Jaguar Land Rover SUVs, said this week that it will partner with OpenAI to create as much as 1 gigawatt in data center capacity.

While India has not had a national AI champion to compete with the world’s leaders, an Indian startup called Sarvam used the spotlight of the summit to launch its own AI model, tailored from the ground up for use in the South Asian nation. The service is voice-based and accessible through nearly two dozen Indian languages, which the company believes will be a competitive advantage in a country of 1.45 billion where the vast majority can’t read, write or type in English.

“Sovereignty matters much more in AI than building the biggest models,” said co-founder Vivek Raghavan at an event in Delhi.

Still, Indian startups have little chance to raise the kind of money their American counterparts have to build out AI models and infrastructure.

“India can catch up in the AI race not by outspending the US and China on frontier models, but by excelling in population-scale deployment in sectors such as agriculture, education and health,” said Brenda Mulele Gunde, global lead for digital transformation at the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Modi’s administration has been supportive, providing subsidized computing capacity, access to public data and expanded AI training programs. India is also seeking to expand its manufacturing capabilities, including in high-tech sectors like semiconductors and smartphones. On Friday, the country formally joined a US-led initiative to protect supply chains, including for chips and critical minerals, along with countries like Japan and South Korea.

The miscues caught up with Modi on stage. In what was supposed to be a signature moment of the event, Modi pulled Pichai, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith and 11 others in for a group photo in the event’s main hall. Instead, as Modi and the others all clasped hands above their heads, Altman and Amodei — fierce rivals in the AI race — refused to hold each other’s hands, a glaring rift that quickly went viral on social media in India.

Another embarrassing incident came when a private university was booted out of the AI exhibition after it allegedly misrepresented a Chinese-made robot dog as its own product. The creator of that machine, Hangzhou-based Unitree, meanwhile was wowing viewers of the Chinese New Year TV gala with its latest humanoids performing acrobatics with humanlike fluidity.

India may not be able to match the US or China in the spending required for AI development, but it was clear that Modi’s conference tapped into a deep undercurrent of angst around the way this once-in-a-generation technology is evolving. In countries beyond the two giants, business and political leaders see the risk that they will end up at the mercy of American or Chinese tech giants — or worse at the mercy of Washington or Beijing. They want an alternative to that bleak future.

“We’re facing too much concentration of power in artificial intelligence,” said Arthur Mensch, CEO of France’s Mistral AI, speaking in Delhi on Thursday. “AI is going to change pretty profoundly the way the economy is being run in the next few years,” he added.

--With assistance from Vlad Savov, Saritha Rai, Shona Ghosh, Bhuma Shrivastava and Mark Anderson.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

 

India’s First Chemical Tanker Order Advances Shipbuilding Ambitions

SDHI booked its first commercial shipbuilding order which is also India's first chemical tanker newbuild order (SDHI)

Published Feb 1, 2026 3:20 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Limited (SDHI), located in India, confirmed that it has received its first shipbuilding order as part of the revitalization of its operations. The order, which comes from a European shipowner, is both the country’s first for a chemical tanker and aligns with India’s ambitions to develop into a leading global shipbuilder.

The order was placed by Bergen, Norway-based Rederiet Stenersen, a 50-plus year old operator of chemical/product tankers. The company currently has a fleet of 19 vessels, all equipped to operate in the harsh conditions of the North Europe trade. The order, which is valued at $227 million, is the company’s first foray into Indian shipbuilding, and they note that it was placed after a comprehensive technical and commercial evaluation. A Letter of Intent was signed in November 2025.

The order is for six tankers, each 18,000 dwt and approximately 150 meters (492 feet) in length. The first vessel is due for delivery in 33 months, and the company has an option for six additional vessels after the first group.

The vessels will be designed by Marinform AS and StoGda Ship Design & Engineering and classed by DNV. Built to Ice Class 1A standards, the tankers will feature advanced dual-fuel LNG-ready hybrid propulsion, enabling multiple operational modes supported by high levels of automation.

Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Limited (SDHI), formerly Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited, was acquired and restarted in 2024 after the bankruptcy of the prior owners. The company aspires to be a large, world-class builder of commercial vessels and other projects, including heavy fabrication. They note the revitalized SDHI shipyard, which is located in Pipavav, Gujarat, on India’s west coast, operates the country’s largest dry dock (662 meters by 65 meters) and has a fabrication capacity of 164,000 tonnes per year.

The company’s director, Vivek Merchant, highlighted that the order is a demonstration of India’s growing commercial shipbuilding ecosystem. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking steps to realize the Prime Minister’s call for India to become a top 10 global shipbuilding nation by 2030 and a top five shipbuilder by 2047.

The government outlined its Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme as part of the effort to support the industry and attract international interest. The program was amended just days ago to include product/chemical tankers.

The tanker order follows the announcement that CMA CGM intends to build containerships in India. The government and industry have also been courting other major companies, including Maersk and MSC.

Northern Lights has Deals With Shipping Lines to Double CO2 Transport Fleet

Northern Lights will double its fleet with larger capacity LCO2 transport vessels (Northern Lights)

Published Jan 29, 2026 8:33 PM by The Maritime Executive

The Norwegian CO2 storage initiative, which became the first commercial operation for carbon capture and storage, announced a new deal that will double the company’s fleet by 2029. This comes just months after the company completed its first injection of liquid CO2 for permanent storage.

Northern Lights, which is a joint venture between Equinor, TotalEnergies, and Shell, reports it has struck a new charter deal with major shipping companies, including existing partner Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (“K” Line), while adding MISC Berhad and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL). Under the new agreements, “K” Line and MSC concluded one charter, and a second will be awarded in April 2026. Two additional charter agreements have been awarded to MOL.

Under the terms of the agreements, the three shipping companies will own the new vessels, which will operate under charter to Northern Lights. Northern Light also said it is increasing the size of each vessel, with the first three vessels awarded to each have a capacity of 12,000 cbm of liquified CO2. 

The new ships will be built by Dalian Shipbuilding Offshore in China and by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries. Deliveries will range between the second half of 2028 and the first half of 2029.

HD Hyundai confirmed it has received the order for two vessels from MOL. It reported the 12,000 cbm ships will measure 150 meters (492 feet) in length. The first class of ships currently operated by Northern Lights are 150 meters (426 feet) in length. HD Hyundai said the new class will be among the largest medium-pressure LCO2 carriers designed to transport captured carbon dioxide in liquid form.

Northern Lights has taken delivery of three 7,500 cbm vessels, Northern Pioneer, Northern Pathfinder, and Northern Phoenix. K Line operates these vessels under an agreement with Northern Lights. A further sister is currently under construction in China for delivery this year. It will be owned and operated by Berhard Schulte, a part of the Schulte Group.

Commenting on the new ship orders, Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights, said they are building the first dedicated fleet for CO2 shipping. Doubling the number of ships and expanding capacity, he said, will enable Northern Lights to optimize its operations and increase flexibility.

The project received approval to launch the operation in May 2025 and reported it completed its first injection into the permanent storage reservoir 2,600 meters under the seabed in August. Already, the company had also announced plans for Phase 2, which will increase transport and storage capacity from 1.5 million tonnes to a minimum of 5 million tonnes of CO? per year.

As a commercial supplier, Northern Lights contracts with large emitters for the capture of their CO2. It is stored, liquefied, and transported aboard the company’s ships to the receiving facility in Norway. From there it is injected into the offshore permanent storage reservoir.

The company is contracting with major industrial companies, including, Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, and Hafslund Celsio’s waste-to-energy plant in Oslo, Norway. In addition, the Northern Lights JV has signed commercial agreements with Yara in the Netherlands, Ørsted in Denmark, and Stockholm Exergi in Sweden

 

China Launches Largest Car Carrier for HMM-Hyundai Glovis Partnership

The new car carrier was floated out in China on January 21 (Nansha)

Published Jan 27, 2026 7:06 PM by The Maritime Executive

China’s Guangzhou Shipyard International last week floated out the largest car carrier in the world. The massive vessel surpasses the 10,000 unit mark, becoming the largest built in China after the yards turned out 9,500 unit vessels last year as part of the coming surge in the sector.

The new vessel is also the first vehicle carrier built for South Korea’s HMM as part of its diversification strategy. HMM entered into long-term agreements with Hyundai Glovis, which will operate the vessels.

Each of the new ships will have a capacity of 10,500 ceu, which will, for a time, give them the title of world’s largest. Wallenius Wilhelmsen, however, in  2024 reproted it was upsizing vessels in its newest class. Due to enter service starting in 2027, the last four vessels of a 12-ship class will increase capacity by 25 percent, handling approximately 11,700 vehicles, making them the largest PCTCs ever to sail.

 

 

The vessels being built for HMM-Hyundai Glovis are 230 meters (755 feet) in length with a total of 14 car decks, including five movable decks. The ships also employ dual-fuel engines from MAN that will be able to use LNG or oil.

No delivery date was announced for the new ship, which is named Glovis Leader. However, the yard said many of the ramps are already in place and that the anti-slip coating on the ramps has been completed below deck 5A.

According to the builders, the ships have been specially designed to handle diverse cargo. They can accommodate both electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells, plus are capable of transporting heavy trucks.

The new ships are part of a surge in orders placed a few years ago in anticipation of rapid growth in the vehicle export markets. Construction orders have slowed more recently, and now analysts are questioning the markets as the U.S. and Europe have moved to put steep tariffs on Chinese cars accusing them of price dumping strategies to dominate the new vehicle markets.

India’s First Chemical Tanker Order Advances Shipbuilding Ambitions

SDHI booked its first commercial shipbuilding order which is also India's first chemical tanker newbuild order (SDHI)

Published Jan 26, 2026 8:34 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Limited (SDHI), located in India, confirmed that it has received its first shipbuilding order as part of the revitalization of its operations. The order, which comes from a European shipowner, is both the country’s first for a chemical tanker and aligns with India’s ambitions to develop into a leading global shipbuilder.

The order was placed by Bergen, Norway-based Rederiet Stenersen, a 50-plus year old operator of chemical/product tankers. The company currently has a fleet of 19 vessels, all equipped to operate in the harsh conditions of the North Europe trade. The order, which is valued at $227 million, is the company’s first foray into Indian shipbuilding, and they note that it was placed after a comprehensive technical and commercial evaluation. A Letter of Intent was signed in November 2025.

The order is for six tankers, each 18,000 dwt and approximately 150 meters (492 feet) in length. The first vessel is due for delivery in 33 months, and the company has an option for six additional vessels after the first group.

The vessels will be designed by Marinform AS and StoGda Ship Design & Engineering and classed by DNV. Built to Ice Class 1A standards, the tankers will feature advanced dual-fuel LNG-ready hybrid propulsion, enabling multiple operational modes supported by high levels of automation.

Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Limited (SDHI), formerly Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited, was acquired and restarted in 2024 after the bankruptcy of the prior owners. The company aspires to be a large, world-class builder of commercial vessels and other projects, including heavy fabrication. They note the revitalized SDHI shipyard, which is located in Pipavav, Gujarat, on India’s west coast, operates the country’s largest dry dock (662 meters by 65 meters) and has a fabrication capacity of 164,000 tonnes per year.

The company’s director, Vivek Merchant, highlighted that the order is a demonstration of India’s growing commercial shipbuilding ecosystem. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking steps to realize the Prime Minister’s call for India to become a top 10 global shipbuilding nation by 2030 and a top five shipbuilder by 2047.

The government outlined its Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme as part of the effort to support the industry and attract international interest. The program was amended just days ago to include product/chemical tankers.

The tanker order follows the announcement that CMA CGM intends to build containerships in India. The government and industry have also been courting other major companies, including Maersk and MSC.

Russia Cuts Funding to Build River-Sea Cargo Ships Citing Sanctions

Russian fund for the program to build new river-sea dry bulk cargo ships has been cut (Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard)

Published Jan 26, 2026 5:44 PM by The Maritime Executive

Reports from Russia indicate that an ambitious program to build a new generation of river-sea cargo ships has been reduced. The Moscow Times cites the impact of high interest rates, import substitution, sanctions, and labor shortages for cuts to the government-subsidized shipbuilding program.

The contract for the construction program was awarded in June 2023 and called for 34 RSD 59 dry cargo ships as part of an effort to modernize the Volga-Donmax service. The Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard hailed it as the largest series in the history of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation. The government was slated to provide most of the financing for the construction in a partnership with lender GTLK.

The Russian media outlet Vedomosti reports the budget was revised in December 2025 for a total of 18 ships, with the government providing a reduced funding of approximately $300 million. The reports said the cost per ship has risen from $16.4 million to nearly $22 million.

The Western sanctions, which included elements targeting the Russian shipbuilding industry, limit the imports of Western-made equipment. Russia’s industry has been working to substitute domestically made elements.

The shipyard said it had begun work on the new ships in September 2024, after having delivered five RSD 59 vessels in a previous series. In November 2024, it reported the keel laying for sections of the new ships, but The Moscow Times says no ships were delivered in 2024, and the project is behind schedule. 

The shipyard had said it expected investments in 2025 to increase its capacity. It was targeted to be able to build up to 20 dry cargo ships per year. Delivery of the ships has been delayed to now run till 2028.

The RSD 59 class are vessels 141 meters (462 feet) in length designed to carry general and bulk cargo. This includes grain, coal, lumber, timber, scrap metal, metal products, and oversized cargo.

 The Russian government had outlined in May 2025 an ambitious program to expand commercial shipbuilding. It committed to investing more than $6 billion to expand and modernize commercial shipbuilding in Russia. Reports said it was to counter the Western sanctions.