Shares of Australian data center operator NextDC surged more than 42% Thursday after Goodman Group and U.S.-listed data center operator Digital Realty moved to acquire stakes of up to 9.9% in the company.

In a regulatory filing on the same day, NextDC said the two companies conducted an aftermarket bookbuild Wednesday, seeking shares at A$9.50 apiece.

NextDC’s board called the move “opportunistic,” noting that it came two weeks after the company disclosed a power supply delay at its M3 Melbourne data center and revised its fiscal 2027 guidance.

The company said it was not aware of the outcome of the share purchase. Goodman and Digital Realty told investors they had no current intention of making a takeover bid, but reserved the right to do so.

NextDC’s rally came against a backdrop of weakness in U.S. data center stocks overnight. Shares of CoreWeave fell about 9%, while Iren dropped roughly 11.2% on Wednesday.

The sell-off followed sweeping Democratic victories in the U.S. midterm elections, which raised expectations of tighter scrutiny and potential restrictions on data center development that could slow the AI infrastructure buildout.

China is mobilizing state-linked companies to take bigger ownership stakes in mines overseas, seeking to strengthen its stranglehold over the metals vital for electric vehicles, semiconductors and jet engines

The state-led push could give Beijing greater leverage over global supplies of critical minerals and who gets access to them, analysts say.

“China is rolling out a state-coordinated global mining strategy” to replace firm-level decision-making, said Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia, adding that the model would allow for larger, better-aligned global mining investments.

In April, a dedicated overseas bureau was set up to oversee investments abroad by central state-owned enterprises. Several government agencies, ministries and policy banks have been mobilized to steer overseas mining deals.

Later in July, a mining investment vehicle was created to coordinate overseas deals, advising Chinese companies on compliance, risk management, and market conditions as they face growing geopolitical tensions and regulatory hurdles abroad.

The push for greater centralization could curb disorderly competition among Chinese firms and strengthen their hand against Western competitors and newer entrants, such as Saudi Arabia and India, Wang said, though a longer review and approval process could also raise corruption risks and weigh on investment returns.

Chinese firms have invested heavily in overseas mining for two decades, making big bets in places avoided by Western miners, from Tajikistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The push has gained urgency as governments increasingly view critical minerals as a source of geopolitical leverage.

Chinese mineral acquisitions abroad reached $8.8 billion in the first three quarters this year — already the highest annual total since at least 2018, according to a Rhodium Group report released Wednesday.

“Acquisitions have mostly been concentrated in minerals that China lacks domestically,” said Armand Meyer, senior research analyst at Rhodium, naming lithium, nickel and cobalt during the electric-vehicle boom in the mid-2010s and gold in recent years.

Outbound investment in upstream critical minerals will likely roughly double from the 2021-2025 period, according to Eurasia, as China doubles down on overseas push to secure access and reserves that it lacks domestically.

Beijing treats 70% import dependence as an implicit red line – which puts copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, bauxite and iron ore under a hard national security constraint to expand supply abroad, Wang said.

Even where reliance is lower, Beijing wants more. For gold, which sits within the 50% “safe” range, the government still seeks additional access to high-grade resources, Wang said. That pursuit of scale and “ultimately geopolitical strength” could override decisions over investment risk and profitability, she added.

But the push is facing growing resistance as host governments demand more local processing, a stage China dominates and has turned into a key supply-chain chokepoint. More resource-rich countries are restricting exports of unprocessed minerals and requiring foreign partners to refine them locally.

Countries have long shipped rare earths to China for processing because refining carries high environmental costs, allowing Beijing to build out massive processing capacity across the country. The U.S. has abundant supplies of rare earths, but it relies on China to refine them.

China now produces about 92% of the world’s refined rare earths, according to the International Energy Agency.

That gives Beijing the ability to withhold supply or flood the market to influence prices and project power, said Brad Handler, director of Energy Finance Lab at the Payne Institute. “If a rival builds a new refinery, China can produce more, oversupply the market and push prices below economic levels,” he said.

China has curbed exports of seven medium and heavy rare earths since last year, requiring exporters to obtain licenses.

Japan has been among the hardest hit, reportedly coming within months of running out of yttrium. The element, used for screen displays and semiconductors, is produced as a byproduct during the extraction of other rare earth metals.

China’s exports of yttrium oxide to Japan collapsed to 4,000 kilograms in September from 51,000 kilograms a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data. And the oxide’s price reportedly surged to about $1,150 a kilogram outside China — roughly 179 times its level two years earlier — compared with about $9 a kilogram inside the country.

Japan spent 16 years building stockpiles after China’s 2010 restrictions, yet “there is virtually no yttrium or lutetium separation capacity outside of China,” Bedford said.

But Chinese companies have adapted in recent years, ramping up greenfield investment and setting up processing capacity near the mines, instead of outright acquisitions, according to Rhodium.

“That is most visible where host governments require local processing,” said Meyer, pointing to Indonesia’s ban on nickel ore exports that has led Chinese firms to build smelting and refining capacity in the Southeast Asian country, instead of shipping them back to China.

Australia’s central bank raised its benchmark cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.85% on Tuesday, the highest level since November 2008.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s move was in line with expectations from economists polled by Reuters, and marked its fifth rate increase this year.

In its statement, the RBA said that the move was a split decision, with six members voting for the increase and three opting for a hold.

This also comes as the country continues to grapple with high inflation, with the consumer price index rising 4.3% in September, up from 4% in August and marking its highest level since March.

The central bank also said inflation is now expected to “remain elevated through much of 2027,” and not expected to fall back into its 2%-3% target range till late 2027, three quarters later than previously forecast.

This was due to higher fuel and other commodity prices, in addition to factors including AI-related investment, which is driving rapid growth in prices for technology-related goods, the RBA said.

In its September decision, RBA governor Michelle Bullock said that inflation is “too high,” driven by higher oil prices from the Iran War and stronger domestic spending.

“We’re seeing signs that upside risks to inflation are materializing,” she added, saying that additional hikes will come “if that’s what’s needed to get inflation down.”

Growth has slowed in the first two quarters of 2026. Australia’s GDP rose 2.1% in the June quarter compared to a year earlier, down from 2.5% in the March quarter.

The RBA is trying to bring inflation back under control while higher borrowing costs and cost-of-living pressures weigh on households and activity.

When asked if she sees a recession for Australia, Bullock said that it is “not our base case at the moment.”

Hi, this is Evelyn, writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection — a snapshot of what I’m seeing and hearing from local businesses.

Chinese robot companies still underpin many U.S. tech endeavors, especially when it comes to the pain point of robotic hands. Who is one of the latest on Nvidia’s radar?

In just a few months, Nvidia has showcased two humanoid robot training packages: one with mechanical hands from Sharpa, and another with hands from Wuji.

Both have ties to founders in Shanghai.

Pan Yunzhe founded Wuji in 2019, eventually moving much of the team to Shenzhen and drawing backers such as Ant Group, HSG and Future Capital, according to PitchBook. A demo video last week claimed a Wuji Hand 2 could autonomously spin a pen, despite interference.

The Wuji Hand 2 made it onto a slide Oct. 21 behind Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as he told a crowd in Berlin about a new humanoid hardware system for training the robots on Nvidia software. The robot body comes from Agile Robots, which has offices in Germany, China and the U.S.

“It will be the flywheel by which we can accelerate development of robotics,” Huang said of the hardware system, called Agile One SN. Agile Robots announced the system, which uses Nvidia’s Isaac robotics software and Jetson Thor computing platform.

Research institutions, such as Stanford and ETH Zurich, can likely start using the Agile One SN system in early 2027, according to Nvidia.

Stanford and ETH Zurich were also among the institutions Nvidia named in connection with its first reference humanoid design, announced May 31. That system uses a body from Chinese humanoid company Unitree and mechanical hands from Sharpa. It was scheduled for delivery from late 2026.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether deliveries had begun, or whether the researchers would try both reference robots, or just one.

Sharpa, headquartered in Singapore, was co-founded by David Li, CEO of Shanghai-based lidar company Hesai. Sharpa has said its manufacturing R&D is in Shanghai.

While these are just two of the many robotic hand makers in China — and globally — they’ve grown so much in prominence that Google DeepMind research lead Keerthana Gopalakrishnan directly compared the two startups in a podcast last month.

Sharpa Wave is a bit stronger than Wuji, which is closer in size to a typical human hand but has the strength of a ten-year-old, she said. It was not clear whether she was testing the Wuji Hand 2 or an earlier version.

In September, humanoid startup JoyIn’s Zhu Mingxuan told me she found Wuji’s mechanical hands very light and very good at completing tasks, but prone to heating up while doing so. She said Sharpa’s performed better, but were far more expensive.

Hardware is limiting humanoid development, and hands are the main challenge, she said. Zhu said she left U.S. humanoid company Figure last year, where she had also worked on models to help humanoid robots mimic human actions.

As China pushes its humanoid industry to develop more core technologies, mechanical hands are one way companies can try to stand out in the robot race.

Consumer electronics company Xiaomi said last week that, by testing its robotic hand in its car factory, it found that most of the tasks it tested required only a specific range of movement.

And in another sign of just how far along the tech may have come in China, Meta has worked with Chinese startup Fourier for a humanoid prototype, The Information reported Oct. 31, citing sources. Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment.

Why China is desperate to ship cars outside of the country

Car salesman Li Ke said that, other than the Covid-19 pandemic, the “golden September and silver October” season is the slowest this year he’s seen in his 26 years on the job.

China industrial profits see strongest growth since June

Profits at large industrial firms rose 14.4% in September from a year earlier, according to official data.

Labubu-maker Pop Mart’s shares extend declines as sales plunge

The company reported a 45% to 50% year-on-year drop in third-quarter revenue, with the Americas and Asia-Pacific seeing the steepest sales drops.

Nov. 2-4: Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in Hong Kong

Nov. 4: Moonshot AI to release full weights for new K3.1 Pro model

Nov. 4: RatingDog China Services PMI

Nov. 5-10: China International Import Expo in Shanghai

Nov. 6-9: China’s World Internet Conference in Wuzhen

Nov. 7: Trade data

Nov. 9: CPI, PPI

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung unveiled the country’s largest ever budget on Monday, pledging to “boldly invest in AI and future growth engines.”

Speaking to the National Assembly on Monday, Lee said total spending for 2027 would rise 12.8% to 820.9 trillion won ($610.14 billion), including 21.3 trillion won for semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers — nearly double the 2026 level.

A separate 4.7 trillion won will go toward developing a sovereign AI model with what Lee described as the “world’s highest performance.”

The government also plans to invest heavily into talent, including training 2,000 specialists to “lead semiconductor design and the regional semiconductor industry,” while expanding AI education for students, job seekers and existing workers.

South Korea has set up university “contract departments,” where students can enroll in company-linked degrees that offer pathways to jobs at firms like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix before graduation.

Companies help design courses, provide financial support and recruit qualifying graduates.

The record spending plan comes as the International Monetary Fund forecasts South Korea’s economy will grow 3.3% in 2026, its fastest pace since the post pandemic rebound in 2021. 

Lee said the higher spending would result in “virtually no net increase in government debt,” with newly issued bonds used to repay existing debt.

The budget also increases spending on defense and social security spending for the youth. Defense expenditure is set to rise 8.2% to 73.3 trillion won.

“We will rapidly transform into a smart, elite, and powerful military by establishing a hybrid manned and unmanned system based on AI, robots, and drones,” Lee said.

South Korea’s strong economic growth has been driven largely by semiconductor exports as global demand for computing power rises with the AI boom.

Exports surged 93.7% from a year earlier to a record $115.3 billion in October, according to data released Sunday by the Korea Customs Service.

Shipments totaled $930 billion in the first 10 months of 2026, surpassing the $900 billion mark for the first time.

The country posted a $42.5 billion trade surplus in October, with imports rising 36% year on year to $72.8 billion.

Lee said South Korea was within reach of $1 trillion in annual exports, citing strong performance in key industries including semiconductors.

The Bank of Japan declared that underlying inflation in the country was “generally consistent” with its target of 2%, the first time it has made that assessment since adopting the target in 2013.

Before this, the BOJ used to say that underlying inflation has been “approaching 2 percent.”

This comes as the central bank expectedly held rates at 1.25%, still at its highest level since 1995.

The decision was split 8-1, with board member Hajime Takata dissenting. Takata had wanted the bank to hike its policy rate to 1.5%.

The BOJ also upgraded its inflation forecast for its fiscal year 2027 to 2.6% from 2.4%, with the so-called “core-core” inflation forecast also raised to 2.7% from 2.6%. The “core-core” inflation strips out prices of fresh food and energy.

It also flagged a risk that underlying inflation will deviate upward beyond 2%, saying that “firms’ behavior has been shifting more toward raising wages and prices and there are various factors that could drive up prices.”

Describing this as a “hawkish hold,” Krishna Bhimavarapu, APAC economist at State Street Investment Management said that the BOJ sees more hikes ahead and is increasingly confident that the target is being achieved through a “self-sustaining wage-price-consumption cycle.”

However, he also added that growth in the country does not justify rushing the next move.

Bhimavarapu forecasts that Japan’s third quarter GDP growth is likely to lose momentum, with consumption still the weakest link in the cycle.

A CNBC survey of 16 economists before the decision revealed that all surveyed expect the BOJ to set the stage for a rate hike in December or January next year, as domestic inflation and wages continue to rise.

Thirteen respondents said they expect a terminal rate, or the level at which the BOJ is expected to stop its tightening cycle, of 1.75% to 2% by around mid-2027.

Japan has been grappling with a weak yen and high energy prices that have pushed up inflation.

However, experts have told CNBC that CPI numbers are being held down by energy subsidies from the Takaichi administration.

The most recent inflation numbers for September revealed core inflation hit their highest level in 2026, coming in at 2.1% and overshooting expectations.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama reportedly told parliament that Japan was “on the cusp of shifting to a period of sustained inflation driven by rising wages.”

Japan’s inflation-adjusted wages rose for the eighth month in a row in August, climbing 1.5% from a year earlier, according to the most recent government data, signaling potential wage-growth-driven inflation as well.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kim contributed to this report.

Tencent and Visa are expanding their partnership in cross-border payments and AI-powered commerce, the companies said Thursday, deepening their push into China’s payments market.

The agreement follows fresh regulatory approvals for U.S. financial firms in China, with Visa and Citi receiving the green light this month to expand their operations in the world’s second-largest economy.

Under the memorandum of understanding, Tencent and Visa will explore ways to make payments easier for travelers entering and leaving China while expanding their cross-border money transfer partnership.

The companies also plan to develop payment solutions that would allow travelers to pay participating merchants through Tencent’s Weixin Pay and Visa networks, subject to regulatory requirements.

They also aim to expand their collaboration through Visa Direct, Visa’s money transfer service, making it easier for overseas users to send funds into the Weixin Pay ecosystem.

The partnership will also extend to agentic commerce, an emerging form of online shopping in which AI agents can help consumers find, select and purchase products or services.

Dowson Tong, Tencent’s senior executive vice president and CEO of its Cloud and Smart Industries Group, said the partnership would combine Tencent’s AI capabilities with Visa’s global network to improve cross-border payments.

“We hope to create more seamless commerce experiences for consumers and new opportunities for businesses, both in China and internationally,” he said.

The announcement follows Visa’s approval from the People’s Bank of China earlier this month to begin preparations for a domestic bank card clearing business, bringing it closer to entering China’s domestic payments market after more than four decades in the country.

Visa and Tencent have been cooperating since at least 2019, when the U.S. payments company announced plans to allow international Visa cardholders to make payments through WeChat Pay in China.

Tencent has also expanded its partnerships with other global payments firms.

In December last year, Mastercard and Tencent’s international payments platform Midas announced a collaboration to integrate Mastercard’s Click to Pay and payment security technologies into Midas’ overseas payment solutions, with the aim of making online transactions faster and more secure.

Last week, Citi said it received approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to establish a wholly owned securities company in China.

The Shanghai-based venture, Citigroup Securities (China), will offer services including equities brokerage, securities underwriting, research and principal trading to domestic and international clients.

Citi said it would complete the remaining regulatory procedures before beginning operations.

The approvals come as Beijing continues to open parts of its financial sector to foreign companies.

CNBC previously reported that U.S. officials pressed Beijing on market access for Mastercard, Visa and Citigroup during bilateral meetings in Bangkok, citing a U.S. Treasury official.

The official said regulatory approvals were also part of an agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting in Washington last month.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani has become the owner of the two most valued companies in India, after a stellar listing of Jio Platforms, the country’s largest telecom operator and digital services firm.

The share of Jio Platforms continued to climb higher on Thursday, opening 3.3% higher a day after its market debut.

The Meta– and Google-backed company listed on Wednesday at a premium of over 25% to its IPO price, leading to a market capitalization of 13.05 trillion rupees ($137.1 billion).

Ambani’s flagship company, Reliance Industries, also the most valued company in India, owns more than a 64% stake in Jio Platforms after the initial public offering.

Ahead of the listing, the patriarch of the Ambani family teared up as his three children shared the journey of building Jio and vowed to create value for investors over the next 50 years.

Analysts expect Jio’s free cash flow to improve significantly as the funds from the initial public offering will be used to repay legacy telecom debt, and the company’s 5G investment cycle is slowing down.

However, they cautioned that most of the value has been priced in after the listing gains, with the company now being valued on par with some of the global telecom giants.

With just 3% share dilution, Jio has wiped out nearly 300 billion rupees of debt, said Anurag Singh, founder and managing partner of U.S. based Ansid Capital, told CNBC. He added Jio’s current market cap puts it in the league of American telecom giants such as AT&T and Verizon Communications.

AT&T has a market cap of $139 billion and Verizon of $179 billion, as per LSEG data.

In the next 10 years, Jio will “democratize every technology that can transform Indian lives,” Akash Ambani, the eldest son of Mukesh and the managing director of Jio Platforms, said on Wednesday, ahead of the listing.

The 35-year-old scion listed out artificial intelligence, Cloud, connected devices, and “connectivity from even space,” as some of the key areas for future growth.

The company’s plans to launch satellite communications drew the ire of trillionaire Elon Musk, who blamed the Ambanis for the delays in the launch of Starlink in India earlier this month.

“Jio brings a rare scale to Indian equities,” with a customer base of more than half a billion, operating margins of 52% and net leverage of 0.36 times, Vaqarjaved Khan, senior analyst at Indian broking firm Angel One, told CNBC.

He added that at a price-to-earnings of 34 times, much of the “quality” is priced in and future returns will be driven by improvement in average revenue per user and AI services.

Meanwhile, after Jio’s listing pop, Reliance Group’s market value of 30 trillion rupees has surpassed that of Tata Group’s 25 trillion rupees, making Ambani family business the top conglomerate in the country, as per a Bloomberg report.

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported third-quarter operating profit that is broadly in line with analysts’ expectations, as demand for advanced memory chips used in artificial intelligence applications continued to grow.

Following the announcement, Samsung shares were trading 5% lower.

The company plans to increase sales of advanced memory chips used in AI applications and secure long-term contracts to meet growing demand.

Here are Samsung’s third-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

• Revenue: 195.25 trillion won ($124 billion) vs. 195.79 trillion won expected
• Operating profit: 107.44 trillion won vs. 107.66 trillion won expected

Samsung’s revenue rose 126.88% year-on-year and 13.85% from the previous quarter, while operating profit rose 783.11% from a year earlier.

The company also announced 30 trillion won in cash dividends for the third quarter, equivalent to 4,601 won per common and preferred share.

The company plans to return another 55 trillion to 75 trillion won to shareholders this year through dividends and share buybacks, as the board will finalize the total shareholder returns and specific execution plans at a meeting scheduled for late January 2027.

Samsung said it became the first global technology company to top 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit, while posting record revenue and profit for a fourth straight quarter.

Its semiconductor business reported 147.1 trillion won in revenue and 106.5 trillion won in operating profit, driven by strong demand for AI-related memory chips.

Furthermore, its memory business also achieved record quarterly revenue and operating profit, supported by a significant ramp-up in HBM4 sales and growing demand for server solid-state drives.

However, Josh Gilbert, lead analyst for APAC at investment platform eToro, appeared unaroused by the numbers, as the results failing to generate much enthusiasm in the market.

“Investors have been so spoilt by the AI trade that a record result is now treated as the bare minimum rather than a reason to celebrate,” Gilbert said, adding that Samsung’s chip business accounted for nearly all of its operating profit in the third quarter, highlighting its growing reliance on memory chips.

“For all the talk of Samsung being a diversified giant, anyone holding the stock today is really holding a memory maker with a phone business attached,” he said, stating that the company’s fortunes now depend heavily on memory prices.

Looking ahead, the company expects AI infrastructure investment to accelerate in 2027, with rising demand likely to further tighten memory supply.

Samsung also plans to increase sales of HBM, a type of high-performance memory used in AI chips, along with other memory products used in servers and data storage.

In the third quarter, Samsung Electronics and five of its affiliates had announced a combined $1 billion investment in KKR-backed Helix Digital Infrastructure. Samsung Electronics will invest $500 million, with the remaining amount coming from its affiliates.

The tech giant had also announced a partnership with French AI startup Mistral AI to use AI technologies in its semiconductor operations, including chip design and manufacturing. The company also led Mistral’s Series D funding round.

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

India, the world’s fifth-largest military spender, shares a contentious relationship with two of its nuclear-armed neighbors — China and Pakistan. Last year, New Delhi carried out military strikes against alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan, and last week an Indian official confirmed some border clashes with China.

As tensions at its borders simmer, India this week announced plans to spend billions of dollars on procuring modern warfare equipment. From whom will it get the goods?

Any thoughts on today’s newsletter? Share them with the team.

The world’s second-largest arms importer, India, is pouring billions of dollars into modernizing its military as it seeks to counter the technological advancements of neighboring China, with whom it shares an uneasy peace.

Last week, an Indian military official said that confrontations with Chinese soldiers were ongoing across several locations along the country’s north-eastern border.

Shatrujeet Singh Kapoor, the director general of a division of India’s central armed forces, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, also called China the “biggest adversary” and urged for modernization of defense equipment. “It will be difficult to compete with China using traditional methods,” Kapoor said.

Following Kapoor’s comments, India approved spending 2.12 trillion rupees ($22 billion) to modernize its defense equipment on Monday. The country plans to spend on long-range kamikaze drones, surveillance and strike systems, counter-drone technologies, short-range air defense, artillery, helicopters and naval platforms.

Experts told CNBC that New Delhi increasingly views Beijing as a threat, especially given the Sino-Pakistan military ties, and the latest purchases were aimed at bridging the technological gap with China.

A spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry said on Friday that “the situation in the India-China border areas gets disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces diverge from established patrolling patterns.” Beijing responded, saying it “strictly abides by the relevant agreements and common understandings reached between the two countries.”

India’s military policies are largely driven by its long-standing conflict with Pakistan, and an “increasing perception of China as a threat,” Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNBC.

According to a SIPRI report earlier this year, 61% of Chinese arms exports were supplied to Pakistan between 2021 and 2025.

India’s latest weapons purchases will involve importing components and technology from South Korea for the artillery, engines and avionics from France for the helicopters, and drones from the U.S. and Israel, Wezeman said.

Collaboration with Russia and Japan could also be on the cards, given India’s need for a technological upgrade.

Since April, India has greenlighted military spending totaling 3.7 trillion rupees, which is more than 50% of the 6.73 trillion rupee worth of approvals — a 10-year high — in the financial year ended March 2026, Citi said in a report on Tuesday.

While New Delhi has said it plans to procure 82% of the defense equipment from local industries, foreign companies are likely to play a key role in providing technology crucial for military modernization.

Foreign partnerships remain important for technologies that India does not yet produce independently, Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at strategic advisory firm Teneo, told CNBC. India relies on imported technologies for specialized components such as aircraft engines, propulsion systems, sensors and electronic subsystems, he explained.

“American, Israeli, and Russian defense manufacturers are likely to find substantial opportunities in India’s expanding defense market,” through joint ventures, co-production and technology partnerships with Indian companies, Chaturvedi said.

India was the world’s second-largest importer of major arms in 2021–25 with an 8.2% share of total global imports, even as its reliance on overseas suppliers dropped by 4% during the same time due to growing local design and production abilities, according to SIPRI.

New Delhi is also the world’s fifth-largest military spender, with $92 billion, but this is less than 30% of Chinese military expenditure and around a 10th of America’s, Wezeman of SIPRI pointed out.

India faces some practical challenges in matching China’s scale of military modernization, but the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have shown that mass-produced systems like drones can address asymmetry, Collin Koh Swee Lean, a senior fellow at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said.

Indian investors rush to Nvidia, SpaceX, Apple as local trading apps roll out access to U.S. stocks
Major Indian online investment platforms are unlocking access to U.S. stocks for millions of retail investors eager to diversify into global assets as the country’s markets continue to underperform.

Meta- and Google-backed Jio Platforms’ shares soar over 21% on trading debut after record IPO
Jio Platforms’ shares rose 21.4% on their trading debut Wednesday after a record initial public offering that was lapped up by retail as well as institutional investors.

Oct. 30: India fiscal deficit at September end

Nov. 2: HSBC manufacturing PMI for October