After meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Friday, CEO Sundar Pichai of internet giant Google said that the company will establish its global financial operation center at GIFT City in Gujarat.
Pichai said that with its USD 10 billion India Digitization Fund, his business keeps making investments in India. At President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s invitation, Modi will be in the US from June 21 to June 24.
The prime minister, in addition to Pichai, also had meetings with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and AMD CEO Lisa Su.
“Today, we’re announcing that our global financial operations center in Gujarat’s GIFT City has officially opened. Thanks to UPI and Aadhaar, it will solidify India’s leadership in the financial industry. We’re going to expand it internationally and build on that base,” Pichai stated.
The CEO of Indian descent expressed excitement about the nation’s advancements, especially with regard to the goal of Digital India and the economic opportunities.
“I first spoke with the prime minister in December, and we kept in touch. We said that Google is contributing USD 10 billion to the India Digitalization Fund, and we continue to invest via it, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI)-related startups. We have a 100-language project as a component of it. Soon, we’ll be introducing bot to additional Indian languages, according to Pichai.
According to him, the prime minister’s plan for a “Digital India” was innovative. According to Pichai, “I now see it as a blueprint that other countries are looking to do so.”
In a tweet, the ministry of foreign affairs said that Prime Minister Modi had invited Google CEO Sundar Pichai to investigate more opportunities for cooperation in the areas of artificial intelligence, fintech, and cybersecurity goods and services, as well as the production of mobile devices in India.
According to the government, they also addressed how Google and Indian academic institutions should work together to advance talent development and research.
Google announced intentions to spend USD 10 billion in India over the next five to seven years in July 2020 in an effort to hasten the uptake of digital services in the important international market.
Pichai made the announcement during his visit to India in December of last year. He said that the India Digitization Fund (IDF), which has a $300 million fund, would invest one-fourth of that amount in companies with female leaders.
Google has previously disclosed a partnership with the Indian Institute of Science, situated in Bengaluru, to gather voice data from 773 districts all around India in order to improve its language translation and search technologies.
The internet giant has announced two grants totaling $1 million: $1 million for Wadhwani AI to use cutting-edge technology to improve agricultural results, and $1 million through Google.Org for the establishment of India’s first responsible artificial intelligence center at IIT Madras.
