Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday in Washington during his state visit to the United States, where he also held discussions with executives from Micron and Applied Materials.
Sundar Pichai announced a $10 billion investment by Google in India’s digitization fund, expressing his admiration for Modi’s forward-thinking vision of Digital India. He highlighted the opening of a global fintech operation centre in Gujarat’s GIFT city as a significant step.
During a three-day official visit to the United States, Prime Minister Modi met with the CEOs of several significant international companies, including Micron and Applied Materials, both of which have planned to invest in India.
“It was an honour to meet PM Modi during the historic visit to the US. We shared with the Prime Minister that Google is investing $10 billion in India’s digitisation fund,” the Chennai-born CEO said.
“We are excited today that we are announcing the opening up of our global fintech operation centre in GIFT city Gujarat,” Sundar Pichai added.
The Alphabet CEO also discussed India’s online presence, claiming that the Prime Minister’s plan for the country to go digital was innovative and way ahead of its time.
“PM’s vision for Digital India was way ahead of his time I now see it as a blueprint that other countries are looking to do,” Pichai said after his meeting with Modi.
Since the IIT-Kharagpur alumnus took over at Google, Pichai and Modi have gotten along well. The two previously met in New Delhi last year. Sundar Pichai stated during that visit that he was eager to maintain solid relationships and support India’s G20 chairmanship in order to create an open internet that functions for everyone.
The Alphabet CEO stated that he was anticipating India’s success with the additional $10 billion and offered a few of his own ideas.
Sundar Pichai discussed the development of a unified AI model for over 100 Indian languages and support for a responsible AI centre with IIT Madras. Prime Minister Modi also met with Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy and Boeing CEO David L Calhoun, with discussions focusing on India’s role in aviation and aerospace.
“That includes our efforts to build a single, unified AI model that will be capable of handling over 100 Indian languages across speech and text – part of our global effort to bring the world’s 1,000 most-spoken languages online and to help people access knowledge and information in their preferred language. We’re also supporting a new, multidisciplinary centre for responsible AI with IIT Madras,” he said.
On the third and last day of his trip, Prime Minister Modi met with Google’s Sundar Pichai, Boeing’s David L. Calhoun and Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy in Washington. He ended a historic journey by departing the United States for Egypt at night.
“The most important takeaway is the PM’s passion for India’s development. He does have a specific interest in aviation, in aerospace. It is a big vision,” CEO of Boeing Calhoun emphasised the significance of India’s contribution to aviation and aerospace, both for the nation and the region at large.
Calhoun stressed the importance of India’s contribution to the region in these sectors, while Jassy expressed commitment to creating employment opportunities, digitizing businesses, and promoting Indian products globally.
