Nvidia is scaling up efforts to court India’s artificial intelligence startups prior of their lifecycle, presenting a string of partnerships this week targets toward attaining founders even before their corporations are formally established. The push is panned to support the AI chipmaker cultivate relationships with future customers in one of the world’s rapid-rising developer markets.
The new move comes by a partnership with early-stage project corporation Activate, which plans to back about 25 to 30 AI startups from its $75 million debut fund at the same time as giving portfolio corporations preferential access to Nvidia’s technical expertise. The collaboration follows other India-targeted efforts presented this week, along with work with nonprofit AI Grants India to assist early-level founders and latest ties with project firms targeted on the South Asian country.
The flurry of activity comes as India hosts its AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, forming top technology corporations which include OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang was credited to attend but skipped the event because of what the corporation called unforeseen circumstances. A senior delegation driven by using executive vice president Jay Puri attended in his place, meeting AI researchers, startups, developers, and partners on the ground.
India has developed as one of the rapid-growing pools of AI developers and startups, making it an gradually essential market for Nvidia as it looks to increase adoption of chips and computing software. By working more directly with founders at the earliest levels, the corporation is placing itself to capture long-term period demand as latest AI-native corporation increase.
Aakrit Vaish, founder of Activate, stated Nvidia’s involvement with startups in India has traditionally been comparatively light-touch compared with the U.S., but the chipmaker is now to work with founders much earlier in their journey. Activate targets to use that shift by linking portfolio startups directly with Nvidia experts.
The VC corporation, which Vaish explains as targeted on “inception funding,” meets technical team months before corporation formation and works closely with them as they grow. Its backers include project capitalist Vinod Khosla, Perplexity co-founder Aravind Srinivas, Peak XV managing director Shailendra Singh, and Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, highlighting the prominent network Activate is arranging around its early-stage strategy.
For Nvidia, the logic behind partnering with an early-stage project organization is simple: the earlier it builds relationships with promising AI startups, the more likely those corporations are to depend on its computing infrastructure as they increase. Vaish instructed TechCrunch that growing startups normally consume growing amounts of AI compute over time, making early technical engagement valuable for the chipmaker as a way of producing future business.
Nvidia already has a considerable presence in the nation by its Inception program, which assisted more than 4,000 startups in India. This week, the chipmaker also expanded its local ecosystem ties, together with partnerships with project firms which include Accel, Peak XV, Z47, Elevation Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners to verify and fund AI startups. It separately teamed up with AI Grants India, co-founded by Vaibhav Domkundwar and Bhasker (Bosky) Kode, to guide more than 10,000 early-stage founders over the next year.
The corporation has also been expanding its startup outreach in India over time. In November 2025, Nvidia joined the India Deep Tech Alliance, a consortium of U.S. And Indian investment such as Accel, Blume Ventures, Premji Invest, and Celesta Capital, to offer strategic and technical guidance to rising startups in the nation.
Vaish stated Activate’s partnership with Nvidia is designed to offer a more curated layer on top of the corporation’s wide-based Inception program, which serves thousands of startups globally. By serving as an early filter for high-potential technical teams, Activate goals to provide its portfolio corporations more direct, timely get admission to to Nvidia’s engineering expertise.
The stepped-up activity underscores intensifying opposition amongst global technology companies to court AI developers and startups in India, which has turn out to be one of the rapid-growing pools of technical talent outside the U.S.
