FEBRUARYASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8NEWSROOMOpenAI has partnered with six leading Indian higher-education institutions to integrate AI tools into academic programs, targeting over 100,000 students and staff within a year.The collaborations include premier institutes such as IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, and AIIMS New Delhi, covering engineering, management, healthcare, and design disciplines.The initiative will provide campus-wide access to ChatGPT Edu, along with faculty training and responsible AI-use frameworks. AI integration will extend into research, coding, analytics, and applied academic work. Some partner institutions will also offer OpenAI-backed certifications. Additionally, collaborations with ed-tech platforms such as Physics Wallah and upGrad will develop AI-focused courses for students and early-career professionals.India is OpenAI's second-largest market, with 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users, driven largely by students. Earlier outreach included over 500,000 free ChatGPT licenses via India's education ministry and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).The expansion also responds to competition, as Google offers Gemini AI Pro free for 18 months to over 500 million Reliance Jio subscribers.Hackathons and Industry Days will connect students with startups and enterprises, building developer pipelines around OpenAI tools. Academic feedback will further refine AI products, reinforcing long-term adoption beyond campus use cases. Palo Alto Networks saw its shares drop 8% on February 18 after lowering its annual profit forecast, citing higher integration costs from recent acquisitions, including its US$25 billion purchase of CyberArk.The company completed the CyberArk acquisition earlier this month and attributed the guidance cut to post-deal expenses such as increased headcount, cloud infrastructure investments, and research and development spending, rather than a revenue shortfall.CEO Nikesh Arora described the earnings-guidance reduction as a one-time integration impact, not a failure of strategy. Despite short-term margin pressure, Palo Alto raised its annual revenue guidance to between $11.28 billion and $11.31 billion, driven by sustained demand and incremental revenue from acquired businesses.Beyond CyberArk, Palo Alto has expanded through acquisitions including Israeli startup Koi and cloud monitoring firm Chronosphere. The company plans to integrate Chronosphere with Cortex AgentiX, emphasizing that "AI security without deep observability is blind." It defines observability as understanding system behavior through performance and log data.Palo Alto ties this approach to an AI-era governance framework where identity controls and telemetry form the foundation. The company notes that machine identities outnumber human identities by more than 80 to 1.It describes its strategy as "platformization," bundling security and operations into fewer, interconnected tools. Analysts remain optimistic about the firm's long-term integrated defense strategy, though suggestions that smaller vendors may become obsolete remain speculative. OPENAI TIES UP WITH IITS, IIM FOR AI EDUCATIONPALO ALTO CUTS PROFIT OUTLOOK AFTER CYBERARK DEAL· OpenAI partners with IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, AIIMS to scale AI education· 100,000+ students to access ChatGPT Edu with certifications and training· India emerges as key AI market amid competition from Google Gemini· Palo Alto shares fall 8% after cutting profit guidance post CyberArk deal· Revenue outlook raised to $11.28­$11.31 billion despite margin pressure· Strategy centers on AI security, identity controls, observability, and platformization
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