India, July 22 -- Madhav Sheth has been leading international smartphone brands in India for many years, but now he is back with a significant twist-focusing on local infrastructure and data sovereignty. His new company, NxtQuantum, brings us Ai+, a smartphone running a custom OS that stores user information on Indian servers. In this conversation, he details the thought process behind the product, the government support through PLI, and what is needed to create a smartphone brand from scratch today.

The idea was to create a genuine Indian smartphone-hardware, software, cloud-all built or interreged locally. Ai+ is not just about price or specifications: it's about sovereignty! If you use this phone, we keep your user data in India, on s...