Apple’s launch event takes place Tuesday night, with the livestream from the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino beginning at 10:30pm IST.

The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to be at the centre of the announcements.

A first-ever foldable iPhone has also been the subject of heavy speculation, though Apple has not confirmed its design, specifications, price or name.

Camera system and battery life upgrades are widely tipped as focus areas for this year’s Pro models.

New devices typically become available for pre-order within days of the event, with retail availability in India usually following soon after.

Indian pricing for new iPhone models is usually announced alongside the US pricing at the event itself, with the devices going on sale in India on the same day as most other major markets.

Alongside new iPhones, Apple’s September events have historically also included updates to the Apple Watch and AirPods lineups.

Speculation ahead of the event has focused heavily on whether the rumoured foldable iPhone would launch immediately or simply be teased for a later release.

Apple’s livestream is typically available through its official website and the Apple TV app, without requiring a separate subscription to watch.

Analysts have pointed to camera system upgrades and battery life improvements as likely focus areas for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models.

Apple’s launch events are traditionally held at the Steve Jobs Theater within Apple Park, the company’s Cupertino headquarters, and are livestreamed globally.

Rumours of a foldable iPhone have circulated for over a year, with supply-chain reports pointing to a device that would mark Apple’s first major new form factor since the original iPhone.

The iPhone 18 series is expected to build on the design and camera changes introduced in the iPhone 17 line launched the previous year.

Steve Jobs Theater, Apple Park, Cupertino, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Indian AI startups raised more than $1 billion in funding during the first half of 2026, marking a 33 per cent increase over the $802 million raised in the same period last year.

The number of funding deals also climbed sharply, rising to 157 in the first half of this year from 112 in the same period of 2025, according to industry tracking data.

Sarvam AI led the funding activity with a $234 million round, backed by investors including HCLTech, Bessemer, Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners.

Freehand, a startup building AI agents for enterprise supply-chain spend management, raised $75 million, while smaller AI-focused startups including Pinegap, Superleap, Kily, Hulp, Consint.AI, Profound and NYAI also attracted capital during the period.

For the full year to date, Indian AI companies have raised a combined $1.34 billion in equity funding across 66 rounds, according to industry data.

Investors said the shift in funding patterns reflects a broader move away from thin, application-layer AI products and toward frontier technology, including sovereign language models, compute infrastructure and coding agents.

Industry analysts said the funding surge positions India as an increasingly significant player in the global AI investment landscape, though questions remain over whether current funding levels are sufficient to compete with better-capitalised markets internationally.

The rise in deal count alongside overall funding volume suggests investor interest has broadened beyond a handful of marquee companies to a wider base of early and growth-stage AI startups.

Sarvam AI, the largest recipient of funding in the first half, has focused on building sovereign large language models tailored to Indian languages, a segment investors have flagged as strategically important for the domestic market.

The broader funding total for 2026 stands at $1.34 billion across 66 rounds through the year so far, spanning companies working on everything from language models to enterprise automation tools.

Photo by Wangkanai, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Experts at the National Space Technology Conclave 2026 have highlighted artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum technology and inter-satellite links as key technologies expected to support India’s future satellite systems.

On-board processing and edge computing through AI and machine learning will allow satellites to process data in space itself, enabling faster decision-making with real-time information for governance, planning and disaster management.

Quantum technology was flagged as a tool to help prevent cyber fraud and strengthen the security of financial transactions, banking and stock market operations, along with military communications and other sensitive networks.

The conclave comes as the Indian Space Research Organisation continues to build on recent milestones, including the lunar landing of Chandrayaan-3, the deployment of the Aditya-L1 solar observatory, and successful orbital docking demonstrations.

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, NISAR, has transitioned into its full operational science phase in 2026, providing detailed radar imaging data used for disaster response, agriculture and infrastructure monitoring.

Officials at the conclave said next-generation satellite systems built around these technologies would be central to India’s broader space and security infrastructure in the years ahead.

NISAR, a joint mission between NASA and ISRO, uses dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar to capture detailed images of Earth’s surface regardless of weather conditions or daylight, a capability valued for tracking floods, landslides and crop health.

Experts at the conclave said inter-satellite links, which allow satellites to communicate directly with one another rather than routing data through ground stations, would reduce latency and improve real-time responsiveness for applications such as disaster alerts.

The push toward AI-enabled satellite systems is part of a broader effort by ISRO to position India as a competitive player in the global space technology and services market over the coming decade.

Officials also pointed to growing private-sector participation in India’s space economy, with domestic startups increasingly contributing components and services that were previously developed exclusively in-house by the space agency.

Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain