Under the Act, the Competition Commissionn of India (CCI) has been established. It seeks to promote free trade and fair competition. It seeks to curb anti-competitive practices — cartelisation, abuse of dominant position (ABP) etc.

The CCI also screens M&As too since 2011. The criteria for this are asset and turnover thresholds for which the CCI’s approval is necessary. Section 5 of the ACT specifies the thresholds.

The Review Committee of this Act set up in 2018 found it necessary to recalibrate the Act. At times the M & A may fall below the thresholds but wields enough market power to throttle competition. Instead of assets and turnover, the deal value threshold(DVT) must be considered. If it crosses Rs.2000 crore with significant India presence, the M & A must be notified to the CCI.

There are anti-trust cases for contravention of anti-competitive agreements (ACAs) and anti-dominant position (ABP). There is a need for settlement proceedings here. The revised Act will have a framework for settlement and commitment for faster resolution of anti-trust cases.

The time limit for assessments will be cut (from 210 days to 150 days) and for forming a prima facie opinion (from 30 days to 20 days).

It seeks to expand the scope of entities that can be considered a part of anti-competitive agreements (ACAs).

Wishing You All a Happy New Year.

Bitcoin, as a crypto, can be spent and is maintained in the ledger, telling others who is paying whom, how much and when. Bitcoin uses this blockchain. This blockchain-based application demands enormous energy for miners to create and validate a code. However, on September 15, 2022, a landmark date, Ethereum for the first time cut down the energy consumption by 99 per cent through a new protocol called the Merge. In Bitcoins, miners hasten to solve mathematical puzzles to verify transactions called proof-of-work. In Ethereum Merge, these are replaced by Proof-of-Stake. Here the validators deposit 32 ETH or around $50,000 to validate transactions. In fact, they act as guardians and get paid for it. Proof-of-Stake makes Ethereum much more akin to a financial asset. It may invite security regulation. Whether Merge will succeed or not will be clear in the coming few weeks and months. However, it is a major upgrade of the crypto operating system.

YouTube wants to encourage creators, and wants them to earn revenues from the platform, especially those who post short videos or shorts. Competition from TikTok led YouTube to consider the revenue sharing afresh. It has extended its YouTube Partner Programme (YPP) to short creators too. In addition, there is Creator Music feature planned. It makes it easier to navigate licensing music for content creators on the platform as a whole.

From next year, i.e. 2023, creators who reach 10 million shorts views over 90 days are eligible for partnership. They will receive all the benefits of YPP. They will share revenue, and would benefit from different ways to earn revenue from the platform. It is for the first time that real revenue sharing is being offered for short videos. Short ads are not attached to the specific videos. They are run in-between videos in the shorts feed. The revenue from all the shorts is pooled together and payout is made to shorts creators, and would cover the costs of music licensing.

In traditional longer videos, there are dedicated ads to the videos. In shorts, ads are not dedicated to specific shorts. Ads appear in the feed. The pooled revenue from the ads is shared — creators get 45 per cent. The revenue share remains the same, even if music is used.

YouTube, thus, is terminating its Creators Fund. It is unable to keep pace with the growth of the shorts.

Moments marketing is practised to make the brands impact and be noticed. American airline JetBlue chose two occasions to practise moments marketing — the US Elections and Mother’s Day.

The year was 2016. A JetBlue flight was subjected to an experiment in compromise. Mid-flight an airline executive told the passengers that if they could decide on a single destination to fly to, they would all get a free round-trip ticket to that destination.

It was an election year. JetBlue wanted to see whether the passengers agree on a common destination and reach a consensus. In the beginning, everything is uncertain. There was an issue of a domestic or foreign destination. Some rows started working together. They proposed several destinations. There was give-and-take. Some objections were over-ruled. Some fears were addressed. There was some persuasion. In an hour, passengers numbering 150 who were strangers, all managed through dialogue, discussion and disagreement. They opted for a common destination — Costa Rica.

Again, in 2016, on Mother’s Day, JetBlue decided to assess passenger’s attitude. They had a plan to alleviate the fears of some mothers who wanted to avoid a ‘lady with the baby who would scream’ creating a nuisance.

The airline offered a special ‘FlyBabies’ promotion on a flight from NYC to Long Beach, California. Passengers were informed about it after the first food and beverage service. The attendant announced there are mothers with babies on the flight. When these babies would cry, it would be hard on them. However, it will be good for you. Every time a baby on the plane cries, you would receive 25 per cent off on your next JetBlue flight. It means if four babies cry, it would entitle them to a free round-trip ticket. It was a welcome announcement.

It was a 7-hour flight. After an hour, none of the tiny passengers obliged by crying. After three and a half-hours, say the half-way mark of the flight, the passengers were restive. Then all of a sudden, one baby let out a loud cry. There was cumulative hurrah. Each passenger had earned 25 per cent off.

After half-an-hour, another baby shed tears, earning them 50 per cent off. There was peace and quiet for the next 90 minutes. Passengers were praying for the next baby to cry. The third baby cried — loud and clear entitling them to 75 per cent. As JetBlue was in the process of landing, the fourth and last baby cried. That gave everyone a free ticket. All 140 passengers were very happy.

Moments marketing is all about magnifying the moment, and not just market it.

Here in India, Go First airline is celebrating its 17th anniversary and has announced that any passenger turning 17 would be entitled to a free ticket, and for the next trip would get 17 per cent off by quoting ‘Going 17’ on mobile app.

We are already aware that there are several plant-based meat substitutes these days. Here plant-based proteins are processed to resemble and taste like meat. The ingredients used in India for such processing are soya and jackfruit. They have produced chicken nuggets, sausages and seekh kebabs which are meat-free. The attempt is to mimic the texture and taste of meat. In order to extend this market, what we need is innovation and an appeal to Indian non-vegetarian consumer. Indian population is by and large flexitarian — it consumes both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. It is a fact that most Indians are protein-deficient. Plant protein has the potential to emerge as alternate meat. Though the cost of such meat is higher than the real meat, it can appeal to premium consumers. In India, there are 100-odd non-meat eating days annually. Such consumers who cannot take meat products on no-meat days can be targeted by meat-substitute products. Licious has launched its vegan meat brand UnCrave for such consumers. It is available in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore. They wish to expand further.

Tremendous expansion of business and explosion of data will make the traditional computers inadequate for the computational requirements expected of them. Research today focuses on quantum computing (QC) which exploits the principles of quantum mechanics. Quantum computing is amazingly faster, much more faster than the traditional supercomputers. The reason for this is the reliance of traditional computing on bits to process information, whereas a QC uses qubits to run multi-dimensional algorithms. It means a quantum computer does not have to wait for the completion of one process to start another.

QC requires a lot of research both on the hardware and software side. QC has the potential to deal with complex and large datasets. Quantum technology has a potential use across the value chain of every industry. It is possible that out of such usage, many novel products may emerge. There could be solutions which are unimaginable today.

India will need a quantum workforce. There could be diverse skill sets in the workforce — technicians, physicists, data scientists, material scientists, software developers and business people who can use QC profitably. IIT, Madras has set up a QNu Labs. IIT Madras will get cloud-based access to IBM’s advanced QC systems. There is tremendous enthusiasm in India for IBM’s quantum computers. IBM has provided over-the-cloud access of its quantum systems to IISER, Pune and IISC, Bangalore and various IITs.

Algorithms will require a fresh relook. We will have to focus on quantum-inspired algorithms that can benefit people who do classical computing.

There is a whole new area of quantum materials. Miniaturisation dealing with basic building blocks of matter such as electrons and protons or even smaller particles may be a different ballgame. These particles may not observe the laws of classical physics. Certain crystals have thin layers which are one lac times thinner than human hair.

To make quantum-mechanics-based devices, it is necessary to learn the properties of 2D materials by a method called Faraday rotation spectroscopy. In the traditional method, one wave length of transmitted light is examined, before moving on to the next wavelength. It takes a lot of time to study the full spectrum. These days the entire spectrum as a whole can be studied instead of studying each wavelength separately.

Different governments are supporting QC. China has announced a funding of $15.3 billion, the EU $7.2 billion and the US $1.9 billion for QC. India in 2020 earmarked Rs.8000 crore to set up the National Mission for Quantum Technologies and Applications.

QC can be applied in drug discovery and development battery technology, logistics and route optimisation, climate change and financial risk modelling.

Indian technology companies between 2012 and 2016 were content to work with SAP, data centres and application outsourcing, and slightly ignored the new age technologies being incubated such as digital marketing, data engineering and cloud. Of course, India caught up later. However, as technologies keep changing rapidly, we should not be caught napping again, as we did between 2012-16. BCG is, therefore, advising Nasscom to track emerging technologies. It covers a span of 5 years.

The biggest bets are on autonomous driving and space tech. It is a big sectoral shift. So far banking attracted attention whereas more attention is now paid to transportation. The attention to areas such as computer vision, sensor tech, deep learning, 5G/6G, edge computing, autonomous analytics and AR/VR is on expected lines. Healthcare is half as much funded as transportation.

The US led the funding for new age technologies — almost 60 per cent. Asia Pacific led by China is way behind — 33 per cent. Europe is paltry 8 per cent. India’s share is small, but the good thing is that here funding is growing fastest.

Metaverse kindled the imagination of techies in 2021 when Facebook declared an investment of $ 100 billion into it. In 2022, Facebook’s metaverse division lost $3.7 billion, and there were concerns about its future. Is metaverse a hype or has it got transformative potential?

In effect, metaverse can be compared to the evolution of AI over the years. AI existed several decades ago, and there was no realisation about its potential. However, it acquired legitimacy only when associated technologies and internet capabilities matured over the next three decades.

Metaverse at present has not enabled free interaction for everyone, and be in full control. It has enabled decentralised communities and their experiences of the virtual world. These can be downloaded from multiple sites.

It will take time to overcome these limitations. Yes, but even as it exists today, metaverse redefines experiences for the first movers.

Some companies have added metaverse capabilities to their sites. It enables a visitor to don different avatars to interact with the organisation.

Recruiters could interact with the job seekers. They can take them on virtual tour. It is a unique immersive experience for them. Metaverse can be used for training and upskilling.

On mobile apps, the algorithms are at work silently. On computers too, the behind the scene work is done by algorithms. Many of our buying decisions are influenced by algorithms. In other words, our choices are algorithmic. Even our media choices are affected by algorithms. This is true for dating applications too. AI these days can write software code, design the graphics and produce creative compositions.

The ultimate achievement is to have machines which equal human beings in intelligence. Are we approaching this? Not really. In the last several decades that AI is with us, we could ask computers to solve certain puzzles and play games such as chess so as to beat the champions. Of late, computers have dared to enter the creative field. Can we have ‘artificial general intelligence’? What we have today is, ‘artificial narrow intelligence’ good at specific tasks. We are slowly inching towards AI reaching close to standard human thought processes. At the same time, human consciousness is more than logical thinking — there is a role for intuition and feelings. There is exceptional creativity. All this comes from deep within. It could be difficult for AI to approach this.

Algorithms also affect our opinions. They also affect our socio-economic choices. We can exercise control if we are educated about AI and algorithms. Even regulators must have this awareness — effect of algorithms on social goals. We create AI and it is for us to shape it. Computer scientists must strive for legitimate uses of AI. AI should ideally be used for empowering human beings. Some countries may use AI for automation of tasks, and some for making people more productive.

Bellman concepts refer to state that is numerical representation of what an agent observes at a particular point in an environment, action input and reward feedback.

Bellman equations attempt to answer questions such as:

Agent in state S. All possible actions are taken. What long term reward can the agent expect? Or what is the value of state the agent is currently in.

Bellman Equations are RL algorithms used for deterministic environments. V(s) C max a (R (s,a) +GammaV(s’) )

In Bellman Optimality Equations, there are large state spaces. It is difficult to solve explicitly. Here Dynamic Programming is used. The problem is broken into simpler sub-problems. A look-up table is created to estimate the value of each state.

There are two classes of Dynamic Programming — Value Iteration and Policy Iteration.

Q-learning combines the policy and value functions, and tells us how useful a given action is jointly to obtain some future reward.

Quality is assigned to a state-action pair as Q (s, a) based on the future value expected. The agent learns this Q-Function. It then searches the best possible action at state (s) that yields highest quality.