Transforming India Conclave 2025: Exploring AI's Role in Humanity

The Transforming India Conclave 2025, hosted by SSVM Group of Institutions in Coimbatore, brings together innovators and changemakers to discuss AI and humanity. Keynote speakers include Jalaj Dani, Ankur Warikoo, Rahul John Aju, and Lokesh Kanagaraj. The conclave explores the theme "AI and Humanity – Co-Creating Our World Today" and emphasizes the importance of empathy and values in AI development.

Kite AI, a startup focused on developing decentralized infrastructure for AI agents in the Web3 ecosystem, has secured $18 million in Series A funding led by PayPal Ventures. This brings the company's total funding to $33 million [1].

The funding round was also backed by other investors including 8VC, Samsung Next, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Avalanche Foundation, LayerZero, and Animoca Brands. The funds will be used to further develop Kite's AI-centric layer-1 blockchain, which is built on Avalanche (AVAX) and aims to enhance scalability and data processing while providing centralized coordination for AI workflows.

Kite AI launched the testnet of its AI-centric layer-1 blockchain in February, introducing AIR, a system that allows AI agents to authenticate and transact independently with programmable identities, native stablecoin payments, and policy enforcement on a dedicated blockchain. AIR comprises two components: an Agent Passport and an Agent App Store.

The Agent Passport provides identity services with operational guardrails, while the Agent App Store offers agents custom services, data sources, and commerce tools, allowing them to pay for these services. According to a Kite representative, the Passport creates a multi-layered identity system where each participant—users, agents, and sessions—has distinct cryptographic identities that form a chain of trust, ensuring actions can be cryptographically traced back to the point of origin.

Kite co-founder and CEO Chi Zhang believes that autonomous agents will be the dominant user interface for future digital economies. He stated that to function, such agents need structured and verifiable data, and providing that was the first step. Now, it is time for identity, trust, and programmable payments that are purpose-built for AI agents.

PayPal Ventures partner Alan Du described Kite as the first real infrastructure purpose-built for the agentic economy, noting that payments are a challenging technical gap for AI agent systems. Kite bridges this gap by providing stablecoin-based, millisecond-level settlement.

The Transforming India Conclave 2025, hosted by SSVM Group of Institutions in Coimbatore, is set to discuss the theme "AI and Humanity – Co-Creating Our World Today," emphasizing the importance of empathy and values in AI development. Keynote speakers include Jalaj Dani, Ankur Warikoo, Rahul John Aju, and Lokesh Kanagaraj.

References:
[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/paypal-ventures-backs-kite-ai-with-18m-to-power-ai-agents