Current Affairs - Technology

Mumbai has been ranked 6th globally out of 97 cities for under-construction data centre capacity in the 2025 edition of Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Data Center Market Comparison report. With 335 MW currently being developed, Mumbai also leads the Asia-Pacific region and accounts for over half of India’s total data centre capacity. This growth is fueled by increasing demand from hyperscalers, expanding AI and cloud computing applications, and strong digital and power infrastructure. The city’s data centre boom is expected to raise operational capacity by 62%, underscoring Mumbai’s emergence as a major global hub for digital infrastructure development.

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, announced that it will launch its first-ever consumer-focused AR smart glasses, named "Specs", in 2026. This marks a major strategic push into the wearable augmented reality space, positioning Snap to compete directly with tech giants like Meta, which already has AR smart glasses on the market. Snap’s announcement reflects over a decade of AR development and a $3 billion investment in this technology. The new smart glasses will be lightweight, powered by Snap’s AR tools like Lens Studio, and are intended for mass-market use, distinguishing them from Snap’s previous limited or developer-only releases.

BHASHINI, under the Digital India initiative, has partnered with Indian Railways to bring multilingual AI solutions to key platforms like NTES and RailMadad. This collaboration aims to improve public access to railway services by integrating technologies such as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS), Text-to-Text Translation, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The partnership facilitates real-time communication and service delivery in 22 Indian languages, promoting digital inclusion and linguistic accessibility. It represents a strategic effort to bridge language barriers and enhance passenger experience, particularly for those more comfortable interacting in regional languages.

Starlink, the satellite internet venture by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has officially received the GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite) licence from India’s Department of Telecommunications. This regulatory approval allows Starlink to provide satellite-based broadband services across the country, making it the third operator in India’s satellite communication market after OneWeb and Jio Satellite Communications. With a trial spectrum expected soon, Starlink is poised to demonstrate its compliance with India’s security and technical standards before launching full-scale operations. This development strengthens India's growing focus on next-generation connectivity solutions in remote and underserved regions.

Russia has developed and patented a pioneering technology that enables the launching of automatic spacecraft, including UAVs, directly from an orbital station. This innovation marks the creation of the world’s first drone platform in space, equipped with robots for maintenance tasks. The technology is set to be tested on the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) and has future applications planned for lunar exploration. This advancement highlights Russia’s ongoing efforts to expand capabilities in space technology and autonomous operations beyond Earth.