Homegrown cloud-kitchen operator Rebel Foods has acquired the master franchise rights for global fast food chain Wendy's in India to scale up the latter's restaurant stores in the country.
We have this and more in today's ETtech Top 5
Also in this letter:
■ Musk looking for researchers to rival OpenAI
■ Infographic Insight: Google leads the pack in ad revenue
■ Cashfree acquires one-click checkout platform Zecpe
Faasos parent Rebel Foods to run US fast-food chain Wendy's in India
Wendy's has struck a deal with Rebel Foods to scale the fast food chain's physical presence in India to 150 locations.
Deal Details: In the expanded relationship, Rebel Foods will develop about 150 traditional Wendy's restaurants over the next decade. Wendy's is in 90 locations across 19 cities at present, with its three traditional restaurants being operated by Rebel.
Quote unquote: "India is a strategic, high-growth potential market for us," Abigail Pringle, president, international and chief development officer, The Wendy's Company, said.
She added that Rebel Foods is expanding its franchise commitment to accelerate Wendy's footprint across the country with a mix of traditional outlets and cloud kitchens.
Catch up-quick: This deal takes forward their earlier
partnership signed in 2020, under which Rebel Foods will launch 250 former's delivery-only stores, also known as cloud kitchens, in India.
The cloud kitchen, which houses brands like Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story, and Faasos,
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India in talks with 18 countries for 4G/5G implementation: Ashwini Vaishnaw
The communication and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday that
India is in talks with 18 countries that are keen to implement the 4G/5G technology stack. He further added that the whole country will get 5G coverage by 2024 and India has already got 100 patents for 6G telecom technology.
Quote Unquote: "These are some of the best (countries) in the world (that are looking to adopt the stack)," Vaishnaw told reporters. "This is a 4G/5G stack that is upgradeable. What we have installed, those same devices will be doing 5G also. Technology has to be tested, and ruggedised, then only we will move to the next. That's why we are doing 4G first (with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) and then 5G."
Telecom reforms: Vaishnaw said India's telecom sector was plagued with numerous problems such as litigation and legacy issues, but has now emerged as a 'sunrise sector' that is investment-oriented and employment-generating.
"Our next major target is getting the Telecom Bill passed in the coming Monsoon session (of Parliament). That will lead to a major series of reforms, in terms of spectrum, licences and regulation. There will be significant reform because of the Bill."
Manufacturing progress: While speaking about the progress on the manufacturing front, Vaishnaw said the first eNodeB, which was designed and made in India, was installed in Chandigarh.
A base station for a cellular network usually consists of a tower and equipment hut. Evolved NodeB or eNodeB is the base station equipment that handles the radio interface with smartphones
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Elon Musk hiring AI researchers to develop OpenAI rival: report
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has
approached several artificial intelligence (AI) researchers in recent weeks to form a new lab that will work on developing an alternative to ChatGPT, according to US tech publication The Information.
Alphabet's ex-employee: Among the researchers Musk has approached, one prominent name is that of Igor Babuschkin, a former member of Alphabet's DeepMind AI unit. Babuschkin specialises in the kind of machine-learning models that power chatbots like ChatGPT.
Though Babuschkin has not officially agreed to work with Musk, he said, he'd like to work with him on something in the LLM (large language model) space.
Rivalling OpenAI: Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 along with a small group of entrepreneurs and AI researchers, including Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator, and Ilya Sutskever, a former Google expert on machine learning.
He served on OpenAI's board until 2018 but left to focus on Tesla. Over the last few months, Musk has repeatedly criticised the company for installing safeguards that prevent ChatGPT from producing text that might offend users.
Also read | Twitter employees to receive "very significant" performance-based stock awards: Elon Musk Tweet of the day
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Infographic Insight: Google rules search ad space
Google enjoyed the lion's share of 58% in search advertising revenue last year, while China's Baidu was a distant second at 15%.
Amazon remained at third spot with 14% share in ad revenue in 2022. Microsoft's Bing was far behind with just 6% share.
Google has dominated search and the search ad market for almost 25 years.
Meanwhile, Microsoft recently announced it will integrate OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT with Bing to take on Google.
"It's a new day in search. It's a new paradigm for search," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said.
In 2022, Microsoft saw $18 billion in ad revenue through search and LinkedIn. Google, meanwhile, pulled in $59 billion in Q4 alone, according to a Business Insider report.
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Cashfree Payments acquires one-click checkout platform Zecpe
Akash Sinha, cofounder and CEO, Cashfree Payments Cashfree Payments has
announced that it has acquired one-click checkout company Zecpe.
This is the payment firm's second acquisition. Cashfree had picked up a
majority stake in UAE-based payment solution provider Telr in 2021 for $15 million, to expand into the Middle Eastern markets and bolster its cross-border payment capabilities.
As a part of the transaction, Zecpe founder Hriday Agarwal along with his team will be joining Cashfree Payments.
"We are certain that this acquisition will strengthen our D2C one-click checkout capabilities and further elevate our leadership position in the SMB space," said Akash Sinha, chief executive, and cofounder, Cashfree Payments.
RBI diktat: The acquisition comes at a time when
Cashfree has been banned from onboarding new users for payment gateway services by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Amid the ongoing funding crunch,
Cashfree laid off close to 100 employees in January, this year, to reduce its burn.
Today's ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai and Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi. 
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