American tech giant Google officially announced a $10 billion digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy. Sundar Pichai, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Silicon-based company took to Twitter to make the announcement today.
Pichai wrote, “Today at #GoogleForIndia we announced a new $10B digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy. We’re proud to support PM @narendramodi’s vision for Digital India – many thanks to Minister @rsprasad & Minister @DrRPNishank for joining us.”
Today at #GoogleForIndia we announced a new $10B digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital economy. We’re proud to support PM @narendramodi’s vision for Digital India – many thanks to Minister @rsprasad & Minister @DrRPNishank for joining us. https://t.co/H0EUFYSD1q
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) July 13, 2020
The company will focus its investments on four areas:
- First, enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, whether it’s Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other
- Second, building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India’s unique needs
- Third, empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation
- Fourth, leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture
India has more than 500 million people online everyday with more than 450 million smartphones in active usage. India is also a key overseas market for Google, due to its range of products and services getting deeply embedded in the Indian digital system. Services such as Google Search, YouTube and Android OS have almost become inseparable from the average Indian user.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also confirmed this news on Twitter. He stated, “This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs.” Modi also discussed the challenges brought by Covid-19 to areas like sports as well as the importance of data and cyber security.
This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs. pic.twitter.com/IS9W24zZxs
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 13, 2020
Google joins the ranks of Facebook and Amazon in India to have made an investment of substantial amounts. Facebook made a $5.7 billion investment in Reliance Jio Platforms, the top telecom operator in the nation in April this year to digitize 60 million mom and pop stores in the country. During his visit to India early this year, Jeff Bezos said Amazon plans to invest an additional $1 billion in India, totalling the company’s to-date commitment to $6.5 billion.
