Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has announced a $10 billion investment by the US tech giant in India’s digitization fund following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington. Pichai expressed his honor in meeting PM Modi and highlighted Google’s commitment to investing in India’s digital transformation. He also revealed plans to establish a global fintech operation center in Gujarat’s GIFT city. Pichai praised PM Modi’s visionary approach to Digital India and acknowledged its influence as a blueprint for other nations. The Google CEO commended the rapid pace of technological advancements under PM Modi’s leadership and expressed his eagerness to support India’s G20 presidency in promoting an open internet accessible to all.
During his visit to India in December, Pichai recognized the progress made under PM Modi’s leadership and emphasized the importance of continuing strong partnerships. He participated in the Google for India event and shared his excitement about the $10 billion India Digitization Fund (IDF), which aims to shape India’s digital future. One of the key initiatives mentioned was the development of a unified AI model capable of processing over 100 Indian languages, along with support for responsible AI through collaboration with IIT Madras.
Pichai also discussed Project Relate, an app designed to understand non-binary speech, highlighting its availability for Hindi users. He mentioned plans to make search result pages bilingual in India and expand the feature to languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Bengali. Voice search capabilities were also improved to better understand Hinglish, taking into account factors like accent and context.
During PM Modi’s state visit to the US, he also met with CEOs Andrew Jassy from Amazon and David L Calhoun from Boeing. Discussions with Calhoun focused on India’s potential role in aviation and aerospace, with PM Modi emphasizing the country’s significance in the industry. Jassy expressed Amazon’s commitment to creating employment opportunities in India and supporting the digitization of small and medium-sized businesses.
Overall, the meetings and announcements highlighted the strong partnership between Google, Amazon, Boeing, and India, emphasizing the country’s digital transformation, innovation, and economic potential.
