5142: DK Shivakumar warns 50% jobs are at risk; NPCI meets Fintechs; and Delivery apps roll out heat shields for riders | Tech3

Cognizant meets Q1 View, Begin Slay Off.

brokerage from Sahi raises $33 million from Axel.

TK Shiva Kumar, 150% jobs are at risk.

NPCI meets with Pintak.

Delivery apps roll out heat shield for riders.

You are listening to Money Controls Tech 3 Podcast.

Hello listeners, welcome to Money Controls Tech 3 Podcast.

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Before we get into our top stories, a quick look at the earnings coming in from the tech site.

Cognizant has reported Q1 2026 driving you of about $5.4 billion,

which is up about 6% year on year or 3.9% in constant currency terms.

And if we look at the operating margin has come in at about 15.6%,

this seems to be flat on an adjacent basis, but down 110 basis points compared to last year.

And another important metric bookings stood out trailing 12 month bookings rose 11% to 29.6 billion dollars

with a book to build ratio of about 1.4 times.

Alongside this, there's also a cost reset announcement underway from Cognizant,

Cognizant effect to incurred between $230 million and $320 million under its projectly pre-structuring.

Now, remember a large portion of this about $270 million is tight to employ related costs indicating

there might be some layoffs or workforce changes as part of the reset.

All right, moving on to our top stories starting with a warning coming out of Karnataka.

Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivkumar spoke at the Network Stadium's Future of Work Summit yesterday

and has said that artificial intelligence could impact up to 50% of jobs in Bengaluru and across the country.

He's flagged that this is a major challenge as the adoption actually.

At the same time, the state is continuing to push Impra and tech investment.

Again, another important thing that he mentioned during the speech was plans to include a second airport in south of Bengaluru

and a large AICT project.

Now, this AICT project is expected to plan around 9,000 acres near Bidadi and could go before the cabinet soon.

So, the idea is to create a more concentrated hub for AI and related industries instead of the current

spread out ecosystem.

So, Bengaluru continues to remain a key hub with over 22.6 million AIC professionals

making it one of the largest tech talent cluster.

All right, moving to payments where a shift is being discussed in how UPI evolves.

NPCI, the National Payments Corporation of India is meeting smaller UPI apps to explore giving them early or exclusive access to certain features.

Now, the ecosystem is highly concentrated.

As we all know, phone pay and Google pay dominate the segment, accounting for about 80% of transaction.

That leaves dozens of smaller apps sharing the remaining market.

Now, the proposal here is to move from simultaneous feature rollout to a staggered approach.

So, smaller apps could get early access to features like UPI Auto Pay and UPI Lite, which may help them attract users.

So, apps expected to be part of the discussion include Bean, Cread, WhatsApp Pay, Movie Quick, Amazon Pay, Supermoney and Navi.

So, there is also discussion around targeted incentives for emerging apps as well as tighten norms around auto pay mandate.

So, this dodges the possible shift from a neutral rollout model to a more intervention driven approach to reduce market concentration.

All right, let's talk about something very visible right now.

Heat waves and their impact on delivery workers.

E-commerce and Quickcommerce companies are expanding heat protection measures as temperatures are rising.

Amazon, for example, has expanded its project ash wave, which includes air conditioned rest stops serving over 150,000 delivery workers each month.

And Flipkart on the other hand is adding rest areas, hydration support, doctor on call access and heat safety training.

Now, there is also shift towards portable solution.

Blink it is distributing about 1.5 lakh glucose, stash it daily, while Zomato has expanded access to more than 5000 rest points.

Zomato is also testing cooling vests in multiple cities for their driver partners.

At the same time, worker groups are calling for formal protections, including paid cooling breaks and emergencies support.

So, the conversation is now moving from optional support to the need for defined standards as extreme heat becomes a regular working condition.

All right, finally, some funding news from the broken industry.

Sahi has raised about $33 million in a series B round, which is led by Axel with participation from elevation capital.

Now, the round value is the company at around $200 million, up from about $60 million in its previous round.

That's quite a jump.

Some background to add here, the company was founded in 2023 by your deal was and money's chain.

So, Sahi operates a CNSC and BSC registered broker.

The funding also remember comes at a time when the broken segment is seeing increased regulatory attention.

At the same time, the activity is also seeing investor interests with platforms expanding beyond trading into broader financial services.

All right, that's a wrap for today's episode of TechSlee from Money Control.

A big shout out to our reporters from the tech and startup team for the stories we cover today.

Thank you so much for listening.

We air every Monday to Friday in the evening.

So, tune in for more news minus the boring bits.

This is Bavya Dilip Kumar signing off.

You were listening to Money Control's Tech3 podcast.