When Binny Bansal, co-founder of India's largest retailer Flipkart was studying at IIT-Delhi, nobody at his institute was interested in the subject of artificial intelligence. "Because nothing was happening in India," Mr. Bansal told his co-panelists Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani during a fireside chat at an event in Bengaluru. That was 15 years ago and a lot has changed since. On Monday, Mr. Nadella, who leads the world's largest software maker, announced a strategic partnership with Flipkart, where the e-commerce company would adopt the company's cloud computing platform, Microsoft Azure. Flipkart said that it planned to leverage artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and analytics capabilities in Azure to optimise its data for innovative merchandising, advertising, marketing and customer service.

Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) must be harnessed strategically in national building to provide equal access to opportunities to all, Nadan Nilekani, the former chairman of India's Unique ID Authority, said during a conference in Bengaluru on Monday. Failure to do so will invite a backlash, Nilekani warned, as large numbers of people see themselves being left out with the fruits of technological advancement benefiting only a few. "How do we use all this stuff that you guys have built and flip it around to benefit large numbers of people, and I think that is very important," Nilekani said in a discussion with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Corp, at a conference on Artificial Intelligence organised by the company. "If we don't do that, I think the backlash, as we've seen in the US, is going to be quite a lot." Nilekani wasn't available for a follow-on discussion, but he was probably referring to many more Americans voting for Donald Trump -- helping Trump become their president -- than any pundits had anticipated, as they feared that his opponent Hillary Clinton represented the elite.