Modi, Biden pledge to deepen India-U.S. partnership as world leaders descend on Delhi for G20 summit
Indian artist Jagjot Singh Rubal gives final touches to an oil painting of U.S. President Joe Biden, at his workshop in Amritsar on September 5, 2023, ahead of the two-day G20 summit in New Delhi.
Narinder Nanu | Afp | Getty Images
NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden pledged Friday to deepen the partnership between their countries in their second bilateral meeting in less than six months, as Delhi prepares to host a meeting among leaders of the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing countries.
The two leaders met shortly at Modi’s official residence after Biden’s arrival in Delhi and then issued a 29-point statement that highlighted the depth and breath of their relationship at a time of evolving global alliances — from building resilient strategic technology value chains and linking defense industrial ecosystems, to collaborating on renewable and nuclear energy, climate financing and cancer research.
The two leaders “reaffirmed the importance of the Quad in supporting a free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific” and “expressed their appreciation for the substantial progress underway to implement the ground breaking achievements of Prime Minister Modi’s historic June 2023 visit to Washington.” The Quad is an informal security alignment of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S., which came about in response to China’s rising strength in the Indo-Pacific region.
This closed-door meeting with Biden was the third — after meetings with leaders from Mauritius and Bangladesh — that Modi convened on the eve of the G20 leaders’ summit and part of the dozen or so bilateral meetings planned for this weekend, underscoring India’s strategic ambitions as a key global player connecting the developed world and the Global South.
The summit is an important one for Modi, whose government has turned the normally sedate rotating G20 presidency into a branding vehicle to burnish India’s geopolitical importance ahead of national elections next year. Many governments, investors and businesses are also starting to look toward India — as China slows — which the International Monetary Fund expects to be the fastest growing economy this year.
Weekend consensus
This weekend’s agenda includes the expected admission of the African Union as an official G20 member as part of India’s broad focus on elevating the place of the Global South and fostering inclusive and sustainable growth in the multilateral forum founded in 1999 as a platform to address issues afflicting the global economy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Jinping though won’t be in attendance this weekend.
While Putin is sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to take his place, China Premier Li Qiang will take Xi’s place — the first time Xi is skipping the G20 meeting in the decade since he became president.
Putin has not traveled outside of Russia since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Ukraine.
The pair’s absence has sparked fears that a communique binding member states may not be issued at the end of a G20 leaders’ summit — undercutting India’s clout and diminishing his domestic messaging.
India’s diplomats have been unable to foster binding agreements in the key discussion tracks since it assumed the rotating presidency in December 2022 — because Russia and China have objected to the wording referring to the war in Ukraine.
A war of words has ensued ahead of this weekend’s meeting.
“The G7 countries (primarily the US, the UK, Germany, and France) have been exerting pressure on India in a bid to have their unilateral approaches to the Ukraine situation reflected in the final documents of G20 forums,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
At a pre-summit press conference Friday, India’s G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant said the final declaration “is almost ready.”
“I can assure you our presidency has been inclusive, decisive and action-oriented,” Kant said.
Alternative to China
With Putin and Xi conspicuously absent this weekend, India and the U.S. will hope this will be sufficient to persuade member states and other observers from the Global South they represent a more viable proposition from food security to debt resolution.
In their joint statement after their Friday bilateral meeting, Biden and Modi “reaffirmed their commitment to the G20.”
They also “expressed confidence that the outcomes of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi will advance the shared goals of accelerating sustainable development, bolstering multilateral cooperation, and building global consensus around inclusive economic policies to address our greatest common challenges, including fundamentally reshaping and scaling up multilateral development banks.”
While Putin has an obvious reason accounting for his absence, Xi, though, has not indicated a reason — triggering speculation the Chinese leader may be snubbing Modi for a variety of reasons.
Despite recently traveling to South Africa for a BRICS meeting, Xi has rarely traveled abroad. Instead, he has tended to receive visiting dignitaries in Beijing — including Zambia and Venezuela in overlapping visits this weekend.
India’s warming ties with the U.S. also sharply contrasts against its standoff with its neighbor, China.
India — along with Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan — sharply rebuked China last week for a new national map that Beijing claims contested territories as its own.
India also stands to gain from American companies looking to diversify their supply chains — at China’s expense — as the U.S. ramps up efforts to limit the transfers of strategic technology to China on the grounds of national security.
This would likely be what Modi and Biden conceived as “their ambitious vision for an enduring India-U.S. partnership that advances the aspirations of our people for a bright and prosperous future, serves the global good, and contributes to a free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific.”
Tesla has officially launched the Model YL, a new, larger Model Y with 6 seats, in China, and it starts at 339,000 Chinese Yuan, the equivalent of about $47,000 USD.
After a few weeks of teasing, Tesla has officially launched the new version of the Model Y on its online configurator in China:
The main things we didn’t know about the vehicle yet were the price and range. Those questions are now answered.
The Model YL starts at ¥339,000, equivalent to approximately $47,000 USD. It’s about $3,600 USD more expensive than the Model Y Long Range AWD in China.
It is rated with a range of 751 km (466 miles) based on the CLTC driving cycle, which typically yields a longer range than the WLTP and EPA standards.
For comparison, the larger version achieves roughly the same range as the smaller Model Y Long Range AWD, thanks to its larger battery pack.
Tesla has released new images of the new version of the Model Y:
Last month, the first specifications and dimensions were released, confirming a length of approximately 180mm (7 inches) longer, a height of about 24mm (1 inch) taller, and a wheelbase that is also 150mm (or approximately 6 inches) longer.
Now, Tesla has confirmed a few more features, including up to 2,539 liters of storage space and electric armrests in the second-row seats.
The automaker is guiding deliveries in September.
Electrek’s Take
The price is reasonable in comparison to Tesla’s current lineup, making the upgrade relatively affordable.
However, it is a lot more expensive than other 6-seater all-electric SUV options in China, such as the Onvo L90, which is about $8,000 cheaper.
I’m curious to see how it will be priced in North America, where I think it would be much more popular than in China.
Tesla needs to go downmarket to access a bigger market in China – not upmarket, but the new option is still a positive for the automaker.
If the pricing matches the one in China, it shouldn’t be much more than $51,000 in the US, which I think would make it a popular option.
However, I think it would be the end of the Model X.
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Environment
Analysts downplay AI bubble worries as Altman says some investors will be left ‘very burnt’
The artificial intelligence boom that Sam Altman helped ignite with ChatGPT in late 2022 is starting to make even him uneasy.
Startups with little more than a pitch deck are raising hundreds of millions. Valuations have become “insane.” Capital is chasing a “kernel of truth” with feverish speed.
The OpenAI CEO still believes the long-term societal upside of AI will outweigh the froth, and he’s ready to keep spending in pursuit of that goal.
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” he said at a recent dinner with reporters. “Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”
He repeated the word ‘bubble‘ three times in 15 seconds, then half-joked, “I’m sure someone’s gonna write some sensational headline about that. I wish you wouldn’t, but that’s fine.”
While Altman warned that valuations are now out of control, he’s ready to shell out on more infrastructure.
“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on datacenter construction in the not very distant future,” Altman said. “And you should expect a bunch of economists wringing their hands, saying, ‘This is so crazy, it’s so reckless,’ and we’ll just be like, ‘You know what? Let us do our thing.'”
OpenAI is already looking beyond Microsoft Azure’s cloud capacity, and is shopping around for more.
The company signed a deal with Google Cloud this spring and, according to Altman, OpenAI is “beyond the compute demand” of what any one hyperscaler can offer.
“You should expect us to take as much compute as we can,” he added. “Our bet is, our demand is going to keep growing, our training needs are going to keep going, and we will spend maybe more aggressively than any company who’s ever spent on anything ahead of progress, because we just have this very deep belief in what we’re seeing.”
It’s not just OpenAI. All the megacaps are trying to keep up.
In their most recent earnings, tech’s biggest names all raised capital expenditure guidance to keep pace with AI demand: Microsoft is now targeting $120 billion in full-year capital expenditures, Amazon is topping $100 billion, Alphabet raised its forecast to $85 billion, and Meta lifted the high end of its capex range to $72 billion.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives said Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that demand for AI infrastructure has grown 30% to 40% in the last months, calling the capex surge a validation moment for the sector.
Ives acknowledged “some froth” in parts of the market, but said the AI revolution with autonomous is only starting to play out and we are in the “second inning of a nine-inning game.”
“The actual impact over the medium and long term is actually being underestimated,” he said.
Citi’s Rob Rowe, speaking Monday on CNBC’s “Money Movers,” pushed back on comparisons between today’s AI boom and the dotcom bubble.
“Back then, you had a lot of over-leveraged situations. You didn’t have a lot of companies that had earnings,” Rowe said. “Here you’re talking about companies that have very solid earnings, very strong cash flow, and they’re funding a lot of this growth through that cash flow. So in many respects, it’s a little different than that.”
He added that the current wave of AI investment is being driven by structural shifts in the global economy, particularly the rapid growth of digital services, which now account for a large share of global exports. Also unlike the dotcom cycle of the late 90s, companies today are funding their infrastructure spending with strong cash flow rather than relying on debt.
Still, concerns about overheating have been mounting.
Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai pointed to worrying signs in the AI sector well before the hyperscalers raised their annual capex guidance during the latest earnings prints.
In March, he warned of a brewing AI bubble in the U.S.
Speaking at HSBC’s Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong, Tsai said he was astounded by the scale of datacenter spending under discussion. Tsai questioned whether hundreds of billions in spending is necessary, and flagged concern about companies starting to build datacenters “on spec,” without clear demand.
Altman, for his part, sees these cycles as part of the natural rhythm of technological progress.
The dotcom crash wiped out scores of companies, but still gave rise to the modern internet. He expects AI to follow a similar path: a few high-profile wipeouts, followed by a lasting transformation.
“I do think some investors are likely to get very burnt here, and that sucks. And I don’t want to minimize that,” he said. “But on the whole, it is my belief that… the value created by AI for society will be tremendous.”
WATCH: OpenAI staffer reportedly to sell $6 billion in stock to SoftBank and other investors
Waymo founder and former CEO John Krafcik is a critic of Tesla’s approach to self-driving, and he has so far accurately predicted the rollout of the “Robotaxi” service.
He is now taking another dig at Tesla.
Krafcik is a highly respected leader in the auto industry. He began his career as a mechanical engineer at the NUMMI plant, which was then a joint GM-Toyota factory, but is now owned by Tesla.
He spent 14 years at Ford, where he was chief engineer of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, a very successful vehicle program. He then moved to Hyundai America, where he served as President for five years.
However, Krafcik is best known for leading Waymo from 2015 to 2021, helping it become the consensus leader in self-driving technology.
Ahead of Tesla’s rollout of its so-called “Robotaxi” service in Austin in June, Krafcik suggested that Tesla could fake the service:
“There are many ways to fake a robotaxi service.”
He wasn’t exactly wrong.
There’s a Tesla employee in the front seat of every “Robotaxi” in the fleet, which is only about a dozen vehicles, based on crowdsource data, which is the only data available, as Tesla doesn’t release any.
Those supervisors in the front seat have their fingers on a kill switch ready to stop the vehicle at all times, and there are many examples of them intervening to prevent accidents or traffic violations.
In new comments (via Business Insider), Krafcik makes it clear that he doesn’t consider this to be a “robotaxi” service:
“Please let me know when Tesla launches a robotaxi — I’m still waiting. It’s (rather obviously) not a robotaxi if there’s an employee inside the car.”
More recently, Tesla expanded its “Robotaxi” service area to the Bay Area in California, but it again has an employee in the car, this time in the driver’s seat.
Krafcik commented:
“If they were striving to re-create today’s Bay Area Uber experience, looks like they’ve absolutely nailed it.”
He continued:
“I think the AV industry would be delighted if Tesla followed Waymo’s approach to launch a robotaxi service, but they are not doing that.”
Furthermore, Tesla has been limiting access to “invite-only” and the invites have been primarily going to Tesla influencers and investors who are rarely critical of the company.
CEO Elon Musk has been discussing “opening up” the service in Austin to the public next month, but it appears that Tesla will need to retain the in-car supervisor for the foreseeable future.
Electrek’s Take
It must be a bit frustrating for Waymo, which has deployed an actual robotaxi service for years, to see Tesla calling this a robotaxi.
When Waymo was using in-car “safety drivers’, it didn’t call its service “robotaxi.” It was obviously in the testing phase.
If Tesla were to remove the safety drivers, which I suggest they don’t, based on the current disengagement rate of FSD and the interventions we have seen from supervisors in the currently minimal “Robotaxi” service in Austin, it would officially be about 5 years behind Waymo.
The argument that Tesla will magically scale faster because they don’t use lidar should be retired, as the goal should be the safest, not the fastest, at scaling.
And when it comes to scaling, Tesla’s current bottleneck is safety. It needs to be safe enough to remove the safety supervisor, and it’s clearly not there yet.
I really don’t like Tesla’s approach. It seems to be more about optics than adopting a safe and transparent approach.
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