What’s New Today: Kerala’s Model Engineering College achieves full-stack India-made chip milestone with its ADAS ICs fabricated at SCL Punjab; Saporo raises €7M to expand its graph-driven identity security platform; Omnicom to eliminate 4,000 roles as it integrates IPG and restructures its agency network.
Fast-Track Insights: Experts warn LLM-only financial pilots struggle with accuracy, cost and regulatory alignment without RAG layers and secure pipelines. Meanwhile, Bitcoin slips to $85,000 amid Fed–BoJ signals, triggering Rs 5,300+ crore worth of crypto long liquidations.
Here’s a quick rundown of the biggest tech headlines making waves today, from India’s advances in chip self-reliance to global restructuring in adtech and fresh turbulence in the cryptocurrency markets.
Model Engineering College, Kochi, has designed two ADAS-focused IC chips that were successfully fabricated at the Union government’s Semiconductor Laboratory in Punjab. Developed under the ‘Chips to Startup’ programme, the project marks a major step toward India completing chip design-to-fabrication entirely within the country.
Saporo, a Swiss cybersecurity startup, has raised €7 million in Series A funding to expand its graph-based Identity Security Posture Management platform. Utilizing in-memory graph analysis coupled with AI-driven remediation, Saporo empowers enterprise customers to remove up to 80% of the riskiest identity attack paths. It will enhance hybrid-cloud security across all global markets.
Omnicom says it will shed more than 4,000 positions as it integrates IPG, moving 85% of its workforce into client-facing roles. Legacy agencies DDB, FCB and MullenLowe will be integrated into TBWA and BBDO. The reorganization aims for Rs 750 million in annual synergies amid pressures from automation and market consolidation.
This, in turn, is driving rapid digital adoption across both banking and insurance. However, their standalone ROI remains limited because of accuracy risks, high inference costs, and strict regulatory demands. A new analysis reveals that most financial AI pilots stall due to a lack of integration between LLMs and secured data pipelines, governance frameworks, or core systems like risk engines and compliance tools. According to experts, improvements in ROI are seen only with the integration of domain tuning, RAG-based accuracy layers, and end-to-end workflow integration.
In December, Bitcoin reported a loss which was later on extended in January, and it even fell below the level of $85,000, which was the point of a global policy signal that tightened the financial markets and pushed it down by almost 6% in just one session. The Bank of Japan was talking about the end of negative interest, while the Federal Reserve was not so optimistic about the further easing of the policy, these combined actions gave the dollar strength, and interest rates went up which led to significant loans being paid off in the crypto market. The total amount of liquidated long positions was over $637 million, whereas the Fear & Greed Index was around 20, and the leading altcoins saw a substantial decline in their demand, as indicated by the drop of the Altcoin Season Index to 25.