Google on Monday unveiled that it plans to invest Rs 75000 crores ($10 billions) over the course of next 5 to 7 years. The search giant looks to help accelerate adoption of digital services in the key overseas market.
“We’ll do this through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments. This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” CEO Sundar Pichai said via video conference at the company’s annual event focused on India.
Investments will focus on four areas:
1- First, enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, whether it’s Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other.
2- Second, building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India’s unique needs.
3- Third, empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation.
4- Fourth, leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture.
“There’s still more work to do in order to make the internet affordable and useful for a billion Indians…from improving voice input and computing for all of India’s languages, to inspiring and supporting a whole new generation of entrepreneurs,” said India-born Pichai.
Sanjay Gupta, the head of Google in India, said the company’s new $10 billion commitment to India today shapes the future of many of its products and services in the country. “We are recommitting ourselves to partner deeply and support India in becoming a truly digital nation,” he said.
Google has also announced a partnership with the Central Board of Secondary Education, just days after social media giant facebook too had partnered with the board. Through its partnership, Google aims to enable over 1 million teachers across 22,000 schools in India.
The tech giant also announced an additional investment of $1 million into Kaivalya Education Foundation to train 700,000 teachers on online education to impart knowledge to children in low income communities in India.
