Nvidia has entered a multi-year collaboration with Activate to identify and support India’s next wave of artificial intelligence startups. Through this partnership, Nvidia aims to strengthen a local innovation pipeline that anchors founders directly to its accelerated computing ecosystem.
The companies unveiled the collaboration at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. Notably, the partnership combines Nvidia’s global startup ecosystem with Activate’s early-stage investing model that supports founders even before a company formally exists.
Under the collaboration, Nvidia will integrate its global NVIDIA Inception program with Activate’s “pre-company” venture approach. As a result, the partnership will focus on idea-to-product incubation, where founders receive support from day zero rather than after incorporation.
Aakrit Vaish, Founder of Activate, explained that the firm designs its model specifically for deeply technical founders at the idea stage. Moreover, he stated that Activate involves partners and advisors early to co-create companies from inception. Consequently, the collaboration extends this philosophy through Nvidia’s global AI startup ecosystem.
Through the tie-up, Activate-backed startups will gain direct access to Nvidia’s developer stack. Specifically, founders will receive technical training, compute resources, reference workflows, and deployment support. Additionally, startups will leverage the Nemotron family of open AI models and Nvidia NIM microservices to accelerate product development and scaling.
Tobias Halloran, Director of EMEAI Startups and Venture Capital at Nvidia, emphasized that Nvidia accelerates founder momentum by offering access to accelerated computing and scalable AI infrastructure. Furthermore, he highlighted programs such as Nvidia Inception and the Nvidia VC Alliance, which help startups build for global markets from India.
The partnership builds on Nvidia’s expanding engagement with India’s AI ecosystem. Previously, Nvidia has worked closely with venture capital firms such as Peak XV, Accel, Nexus Venture Partners, and Elevation Capital to identify and support emerging AI startups.
As a result, these efforts signal a strategic shift for Nvidia. Rather than acting solely as a hardware supplier, Nvidia now plays an active role in shaping India’s AI startup pipeline by connecting capital, infrastructure, and developer enablement.
At the same time, the collaboration reflects a broader shift in investor behavior across India’s AI ecosystem. Currently, AI funding concentrates heavily at the earliest stages, where founders test use cases and build technical depth before scaling revenue.
Activate has positioned itself as a pre-company venture platform that works with founders from inception. According to Vaish, investors now prioritize proof of progress, such as working prototypes and customer validation, over near-term monetization.
By aligning Activate’s founder-first model with Nvidia’s advanced tooling and compute infrastructure, the partnership aims to close a critical gap in India’s AI journey. Specifically, the collaboration pairs strong technical talent with access to high-performance computing and global deployment pathways.
Going forward, both companies will jointly identify high-potential founders across India. Additionally, they will run developer enablement and community programs to help teams prototype, optimize, and scale AI applications on Nvidia GPUs.
The move comes as global technology providers and domestic investors increasingly view India as a key hub for applied AI innovation. Importantly, much of the value creation now occurs at the application layer rather than in building large foundational models.
For Nvidia, the collaboration reinforces its long-term strategy to seed demand for accelerated computing. As India ramps up public and private investment under the IndiaAI Mission, Nvidia aims to ensure that the next generation of AI startups builds natively on its platform.
