Bengaluru is usually in comparison with Silicon Valley for having one of many largest startup and developer ecosystems. Large concepts or vital breakthroughs usually stem from small, centered groups with massive threat appetites.
On the Make investments Karnataka 2025 summit, Sebastian Thrun, founding father of Google X (Google’s analysis arm), who led the event of Waymo, previously generally known as the Google self-driving automotive challenge, mentioned how Bengaluru may lead the subsequent technology of moonshot improvements.
Moonshot State of Thoughts
“I feel in some unspecified time in the future right here in Bengaluru, you’re going to fly to the airport. It’s not going to take an hour; it’s going to take 5 minutes,” he mentioned, referring to a prototype of Sarla Aviation, which he got here throughout on the summit. The expertise would considerably lower journey instances and cut back congestion, particularly in a metropolis like Bengaluru.
A moonshot concept refers to an bold challenge that appears fairly unimaginable to attain. In Thrun’s phrases, “The moonshot concept is a change of some essential societal drawback with new applied sciences. He additionally highlighted the huge variety of innovations nonetheless ready to be found.
Waymo began as a moonshot challenge at Google X. As of October 2024, Waymo was valued at over $45 billion after a $5.6 billion funding spherical led by Alphabet.
On the World Authorities Summit 2025 in Dubai, Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the exceptional development that self-driving vehicles, and Waymo specifically, have had.
“Final 12 months, Waymo…served over 4 million passenger journeys, and we are actually averaging over 1,50,000…paid rides per week within the US throughout San Francisco, Phoenix, and LA,” he mentioned, highlighting how they’re reaching 78% fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers.
Even Google Mind, which led to the creation of the transformer fashions that pioneer fashions like ChatGPT, started as a moonshot concept.
Google X’s moonshot tasks have added $200-300 billion in worth, displaying that even failures push expertise ahead. Google Glass didn’t take off, nevertheless it helped advance AR and VR. Mission Loon, a Google challenge that used high-altitude balloons to supply web entry to distant areas, bumped into geopolitical roadblocks, nevertheless it led to higher alternate options like Starlink.
Expertise is Not a Zero-Sum Sport
“I’m a deep believer that expertise enhances individuals. I additionally consider it isn’t a zero-sum sport,” Thrun mentioned. He added that historical past exhibits that innovation creates new alternatives reasonably than eliminating work.
Within the 1700s, 95% of individuals labored in agriculture, however now, with new jobs rising in fields like software program engineering, aviation, media, and healthcare, the determine has dropped to only 1-2%.
As brokers enter the workforce, this sentiment is repeatedly strengthened by the Silicon Valley firms. On the AI Motion Summit in Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the chance for India’s AI journey, given how the nation has the world’s largest AI expertise pool. Because the nation enters a brand new economic system formed by AI, he urged the necessity for upskilling, which was additionally mirrored within the Union Price range 2025. The federal government allotted ₹500 crore to arrange a Centre of Excellence in AI for training, which is able to use AI to enhance India’s training system.
“I imply, that is your probability in India. You have got the brightest individuals on the planet. Most of our CEOs in America are Indian,” mentioned Thrun. ‘Consideration is All You Want’, a landmark analysis paper authored by eight scientists working at Google that launched a brand new neural community structure known as the Transformer, included two Indian authors – Niki Parmar and Ashish Vaswani – each of whom are regarded Indian-American researchers.
Thrun hinted in the direction of a world the place just a few founders can construct one thing extraordinarily modern. The rise of AI inevitably lowers the limitations to entry, the place small groups can construct world firms from dorm rooms and low outlets with out the necessity for giant groups or substantial capital.
In a viral podcast with Y Combinator chief Garry Tan earlier, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned the way forward for billion-dollar startups within the intelligence period, which might contain only one particular person and 10,000 GPUs. The idea of a ‘one-person billion-dollar startup’ just isn’t new and has been mentioned by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz on their very own podcasts beforehand.
A bigger Danger Urge for food
The world is heading in the direction of a technological singularity. “In case you have a look at historical past and make a graph of innovations over time, like 3,00,000 years, immediately, within the final 100 years, innovation has exploded,” Thrun mentioned. As innovation will increase within the AI age, predictions are tougher than ever. “I used to have the ability to predict, like, 5–10 years from now. I can’t even predict three years from now anymore.”
Thrun concluded by saying that AI could be dangerous, however security emerges via accountable growth, not preemptive regulation, and Waymo’s development journey is a case level for this.
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