#FactCheck - Viral Video of ‘Hatha Yogi’ Meditating on Snowy Mountain Is AI-Generated
A video claiming to show a Hatha yogi performing extreme penance on a snow-covered mountain amid strong icy winds is going viral on social media. In the clip, the ascetic is seen balancing on one hand in a yoga posture, while users portray the visuals as a rare example of extraordinary spiritual endurance in harsh climatic conditions.
However, an investigation by the CyberPeace Foundation has found the claim to be false. Our analysis confirms that the viral video is AI-generated and does not depict a real person or an actual event.
Claim:
A Instagram user shared the video with the caption:
“Hatha yogi, what kind of soil are these people made of?” The post suggests that the visuals show a real yogi performing intense meditation on a frozen mountain.
- https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTK32TvDGIJ/
- (Archive link as provided) https://perma.cc/H84M-MGXZ
Fact Check:
To verify the claim, the CyberPeace Foundation conducted a detailed examination of the viral video.No credible or verifiable news reports were found to support the claim that such an incident ever occurred.
The viral video was analysed using the AI detection tool Deepfake-O-Meter.Its AVSRDD (2025) module flagged the video as AI-generated, confirming that the visuals were digitally created and not recorded in real life.
Multiple indicators within the footage,such as unnatural body balance, environmental inconsistencies, and visual artifacts are consistent with AI-generated content.
Conclusion
The viral video purportedly showing a yogi meditating on a frozen mountain is not real. It has been created using artificial intelligence and is being circulated on social media with a misleading narrative. Users are advised to exercise caution and verify content before sharing such sensational claims.
Related Blogs
Executive Summary:
False information spread on social media that Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh, India’s first female Rafale pilot, had been captured by Pakistan during “Operation Sindoor”. The allegations are untrue and baseless as no credible or official confirmation supports the claim, and Singh is confirmed to be safe and actively serving. The rumor, likely originating from unverified sources, sparked public concern and underscored the serious threat fake news poses to national security.
Claim:
An X user posted stating that “ Initial image released of a female Indian Shivani singh Rafale pilot shot down in Pakistan”. It was falsely claimed that Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh had been captured, and that the Rafale aircraft was shot down by Pakistan.
Fact Check:
After doing reverse image search, we found an instagram post stating the two Indian Air Force pilots—Wing Commander Tejpal (50) and trainee Bhoomika (28)—who had ejected from a Kiran Jet Trainer during a routine training sortie from Bengaluru before it crashed near Bhogapuram village in Karnataka. The aircraft exploded upon impact, but both pilots were later found alive, though injured and exhausted.
Also we found a youtube channel which is showing the video from the past and not what it was claimed to be.
Conclusion:
The false claims about Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh being captured by Pakistan and her Rafale jet being shot down have been debunked. The image used was unrelated and showed IAF pilots from a separate training incident. Several media also confirmed that its video made no mention of Ms. Singh’s arrest. This highlights the dangers of misinformation, especially concerning national security. Verifying facts through credible sources and avoiding the spread of unverified content is essential to maintain public trust and protect the reputation of those serving in the armed forces.
- Claim: False claims about Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh being captured by Pakistan and her Rafale jet being shot down
- Claimed On: Social Media
- Fact Check: False and Misleading
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Introduction
As AI becomes more deeply integrated into everyday life and industries, Google Cloud is increasing its investment in AI-ready data centres worldwide, with India emerging as a key part of its expansion plans. Thomas Kurian’s latest India visit highlighted Google Cloud’s expanding ambitions in the country. Beyond the $15 billion, 1GW Visakhapatnam data centre announced in October 2025, Google is planning a larger multi-year AI infrastructure push, backed by partnerships with major enterprises across banking, healthcare, and digital services. This reflects a shift where countries are not only competing to create advanced AI technologies but also to build the infrastructure needed to support and lead the future AI economy. But it's worth being precise about what "building infrastructure" actually means here because it is private, foreign-headquartered capital constructing facilities on Indian soil, under terms that remain largely opaque to the public that will depend on them. That distinction matters more than the investment headline suggests.
The Promise and Pressure of Google’s Full-Stack AI Strategy
For decades, data centres were mainly built to store information, host websites, and support cloud applications. The rise of generative AI has completely changed that role. Today's systems need massive computing power both to train models on huge datasets and to run them every time someone generates content or automates a task. It is distinguished from traditional workloads mainly due to relying on proprietary technologies like GPU or TPU, alongside advanced networking and dynamic storage systems that complement each other and work in unison. The efforts of Google to create its own TPUs are understandable as they played a vital role in a number of achievements made by Google DeepMind. Today, the companies, government entities, and people turning to AI solutions put enormous pressure on the processing of data.
The companies that are building this infrastructure are shaping ecosystems on which others will depend on. Google’s “full stack” approach that infers controlling everything from chips and AI models to cloud platforms and applications which may improve efficiency and reduce costs, but it also creates deeper dependence on a single provider. Like a hospital adopting an AI platform is not just purchasing software; over time, its data systems, workflows, and operations can become closely tied to the underlying cloud ecosystem.
This concern when viewed against the concentration of the global cloud market: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud together control roughly two-thirds of global cloud infrastructure, making them the dominant gatekeepers of enterprise computing. As these same companies move upward into AI models and applications while controlling the compute layer beneath them, the debate is no longer only about market share, it is about control over the entire AI value chain.
Why Location Matters and Why It Isn't Enough
In traditional internet services, a delay of a few milliseconds rarely mattered. However, future AI applications like autonomous vehicles, AI-assisted diagnostics, automated factory robotics will demand near-instant decision-making and cannot always depend on servers thousands of kilometres away. Regional data centres reduce that latency, which matters especially for India, where hundreds of millions are expected to interact with AI-powered services in the coming years. There is also the question of data sovereignty, and this is where the infrastructure narrative gets ahead of the regulatory reality. Governments worldwide are increasingly concerned about where citizens' and companies' data is stored and processed and local data centres are presented as the answer, but physical proximity does not automatically translate into legal accountability. Google has acknowledged that it bills cloud revenue through whichever global entity corresponds to the data centre being accessed which means an Indian client's spending on Google Cloud infrastructure inside India may still not be booked, taxed, or contractually governed as an Indian transaction. Google Cloud India Pvt. Ltd reported just ₹2,065.4 crore in FY25 revenue, strikingly disconnected from the scale of a $15 billion facility and its roster of major Indian clients. Servers on Indian soil do not by themselves guarantee that India captures the tax base, the leverage, or the oversight that "data sovereignty" implies.
This gap is widened by where India's own data protection framework stands. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 leaves retention periods and purpose limitation loosely specified under Sections 8(7) and 12, and its enforcement rules are still being finalised. When hospitals or banks process data through a foundation-model platform like Gemini Enterprise, questions like where processing occurs and what audit trail exists for cross-border flows are not resolved by a local data centre's presence. At present, they rely mostly on vendor assurance rather than independent verification.
Economic Opportunities: More Than Just Servers
AI data centres are often imagined as buildings filled with computers, but their economic impact extends further, into energy systems, construction, engineering, semiconductor supply chains, and skilled technical work. Countries hosting these facilities can benefit from investment and job creation, while local businesses gain access to AI tools without building expensive infrastructure of their own.
For India, expanded AI infrastructure could support ambitions to become a global technology hub, and could narrow the gap in access to high-performance computing that has historically disadvantaged smaller companies and researchers. That potential is real. But it should be weighed against the terms on which it arrives, whether the economic value generated is captured domestically through tax revenue and enforceable local accountability, or whether India functions primarily as a hosting site while value accrues elsewhere. The current revenue-booking structure suggests the latter is, at minimum, a live risk rather than a settled question.
The Environmental Challenge of AI Expansion
However, what remains less discussed is the environmental cost behind this expansion from its impact on the power grid and water required for cooling to clearing use of renewable energy. A 1GW facility, the scale for the Visakhapatnam project is comparable to the output of a mid-sized power plant dedicated entirely to compute demand. As models grow larger and adoption accelerates, this level of energy and water consumption has become one of the central concerns of the global AI infra. As much attention as the investment figures receive, the sustainability issue behind such large-scale infrastructure deserves equal visibility.
The Future: AI Infrastructure as National Infrastructure
The expansion of Google Cloud's AI data centres show a change in how the world views computing. Data centres are no longer invisible facilities operating in the background; they are becoming strategic infrastructure comparable to power grids and telecom networks. That comparison should prompt that infrastructure this consequential is usually made subject to public oversight, licensing conditions, and accountability mechanisms proportionate to its importance which is missing so far. Google Cloud's investment and the compute capacity it brings will lower barriers for Indian enterprises and researchers who have long lacked access to frontier-scale infrastructure. Against this backdrop, India needs to develop the regulatory, tax, and competition frameworks to ensure that the foundation serves the country hosting it, rather than the company that owns it.
Beyond Compute: The Emerging Question of AI Sovereignty
The next phase of the AI race may not be defined only by who builds the most capable models, but by who governs the infrastructure, standards, and decision making systems that those models depend upon. As advances in artificial general intelligence and discussions around superintelligence move from research laboratories into policy circles, control over compute resources is becoming a matter of strategic importance comparable to control over energy reserves or communication networks. Nations that rely entirely on external providers for advanced AI infrastructure may eventually find themselves dependent not merely for technology services, but for economic productivity, public administration, healthcare delivery, and national security capabilities. For India, the challenge is therefore larger than attracting investment. It is about ensuring meaningful domestic participation in ownership, governance, talent development, and oversight so that the intelligence systems shaping the future remain aligned with national priorities and public interest.
References
Executive Summary
An image of a banknote featuring Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is going viral on social media, with claims that Iran’s central bank has issued a newly designed 5 million rial note bearing his portrait. However, a fact-check by the CyberPeace Research Wing has found the claim to be misleading.
Claim
The image was shared by a verified user, “Sprinter Press Agency,” on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that the Central Bank had introduced a new banknote design featuring the leader of the Islamic Revolution.
Fact Check
To verify the claim, relevant keywords were searched across multiple credible sources. No reports were found from any reputable international media outlet, Iranian government platform, or the Central Bank of Iran confirming the release of such a banknote. A technical analysis of the viral image was also conducted. According to the AI detection tool Zhuque AI Detection Assistant, there is a 63.8% probability that the image is AI-generated, raising further doubts about its authenticity.
Conclusion:
The claim that Iran’s central bank has issued a new 5 million rial banknote featuring Ayatollah Khamenei is misleading. There is no official confirmation of such a release, and available evidence suggests that the viral image is either edited or AI-generated.
