Google and Alphabet CEO, India-born Sundar Pichai is visiting India and he is all praise for the technological leap India has made over the past few years.
Speaking with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Pichai said, “the pace of technological change in the country has been extraordinary and Google is supporting small businesses and startups, investing in cybersecurity, providing education and skills training, and applying AI (Artificial Intelligence) in sectors like agriculture and healthcare.”
GOOGLE LOOKING AT FAST UTILISATION OF $10BILLION INDIA DIGITISATION FUND
Touching upon the progress made so far with regards to the fund the giant had announced for the country in 2020, the $10 billion, 10-year India Digitization Fund (IDF), Pichai said his visit to India is to see progress being made the $10 billion, 10-year India Digitization Fund (IDF), and share new ways. We’re helping to advance India’s digital future at our Google for India event.
Elaborating on plans to boost India’s technological capabilities, Sundar Pichai in his blog wrote, “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,” Pichai said.
In July 2020, Google announced plans to invest $10 billion in India over the next five to seven years as the search giant looks to help accelerate the adoption of digital services in the key overseas market.
During his interaction with telecommunications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Sundar Pichai said he was excited to see the ways India will contribute to breakthroughs in AI that could benefit over a billion people in India, and more around the world.
Responding to Pichai, IT Minister said, “let me make it clear that we are keen on nurturing AI and see it having a big role in India’s tech story, be it agriculture, diversity of languages, bridging the gap and making credit accessible to people at the bottom of the pyramid, there is an opportunity everywhere. We will ride on the success of what has been achieved on both payment and identity.”
IT Minister said India is set to become a technology giant in years to come and data from UPI transactions is proof of a robust digital economy.
The next step, Pichai told Vaishnaw was to use the Artificial Intelligence model and ensure information is shared across 1,000 languages.
Pichai added he was amazed at the ways people are already using technology to make their communities better.
Touching upon India’s start-up ecosystem, Pichai was of the view that it was very sophisticated. “In the US, its success was on account of access to a population of 300 million. In India, the ability to scale up is an opportunity.”
YOUTUBE’S CREATIVE ECOSYSTEM CONTRIBUTED Rs. 10,000 CRORES TO INDIAN ECONOMY
YouTube’s creative ecosystem contributed over INR 10,000 Crores and supported more than 7,50,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the Indian Economy in 2021.
Speaking exclusively with India Today, Ajay Vidyasagar, Director – South, SouthEast Asia & APAC Emerging Markets, YouTube said, “India is one of the brightest spots for YouTube globally and now we are launching ‘Courses’ in India.”
“The rate of growth in India is astounding data shows over 4.5K channels have over 10 Lakh subscribers, an increase of over 40%, year over year. YouTube shorts has grown massively and India is a county of videos. We will allow monetization on shorts from the last quarter of the next year.”
He added, “We have a robust mechanism in place to check content moderation. We have invested heavily in R&D and in teams that monitor content on the platform. On average, we take down 1 million videos through monitoring.”
PM & GOVT PUSHING DIGITAL INDIA VISION
Sundar Pichai was awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan – India’s third-highest civilian award – earlier this year. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for 2022 in the Trade and Industry category.
“I am deeply grateful to the Indian government and the people of India for this immense honour. It is incredibly meaningful to be honoured in this way by the country that shaped me,” Pichai said while accepting the award.
While he had a public interaction with IT Minister, he also met the PM for a closed-door meeting.
Pichai said he was looking forward to supporting India’s G20 presidency to “advance an open, connected internet that works for all”.
Thank you for a great meeting today PM @narendramodi. Inspiring to see the rapid pace of technological change under your leadership. Look forward to continuing our strong partnership and supporting India’s G20 presidency to advance an open, connected internet that works for all,” Google’s India-born CEO tweeted.
In response to the tweet, Modi wrote: “Was a delight to meet you @sundarpichai and discuss innovation, technology and more. It is important the world continues to work together to leverage tech for human prosperity and sustainable development.”
INDIAN LAWS ON DATA WILL MAKE SURE ROBUST USE OF AI
From an Indian point of view, the data bill and the digital India bill, will see the creation of a robust platform to get the best out of AI, Ashwini Vaishnaw explained.
“The focus will be on the middle class and poor to eventually them getting the benefits of technology,” he said. In the midst of all this, the role of the private sector will be a key component, with the government providing a platform. “The private sector will then offer a solution.”
Speaking exclusively with India Today, IT Minister said, “Data Protection Bill, Telecom Bill and Digital India bill will be tabled in next monsoon session. Consultations are on with experts on all aspects, we will make sure Indian data is secure and no one takes Indian user for a ride.”
“India is the brightest spot when it comes to technology, UPI numbers show 55% of India’s GDP is through digital transactions. In G20 we will showcase our technology to the world global players are very much interested in how we are growing.”
There has been some debate on what the role of regulation could entail. According to Pichai, technology needs responsible regulations and “India has a leadership role given its scale. It is important to balance and safeguard the framework. As we see it, this is an important moment in time.”
