Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, unveiled the Google for India Digitization Fund through which the company will be making investments in the country. “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,” he said via video conference at the company’s annual event focused on India. Investments will focus 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 to embark on their digital transformation. Fourth, leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education and agriculture. More than 500 million people in India are online today and over 450 million smartphones are in active use in the country. “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. Google’s announcement today also comes at a time when India appears to be shutting its door to Chinese firms. New Delhi last month banned 59 apps and services developed by Chinese companies.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/13/google-to-invest-10-billion-in-india/