Google to Invest $10 Billion in India Digitization Push

[Vanguard One]

Indian commuters pass an advertisement for Google in Bangalore. Photographer: Manjunath Kiran/AFP via Getty Images

Google said it plans to spend $10 billion over the next five to seven years to help accelerate the adoption of digital technologies in India.

Sundar Pichai, who was born in the country and is now chief executive officer of parent Alphabet Inc., made the announcement at the annual Google for India event via video conference. He said the outbreak of the coronavirus has made clear the importance of technology for conducting business and for connecting with friends and family.

“This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” he said of the India Digitization Fund.

Google said the investments would focus on several key areas:

• Enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, including Hindi, Tamil and Punjabi
• Building new products and services that are relevant to India’s unique needs
• Empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation
• Leveraging technology and artificial intelligence for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture

Google, founded in 1998 in Silicon Valley, entered India six years later with offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Its focus at the time was search services to help people find relevant information on everything from Bollywood news to cricket scores, Pichai said.

The India business has since grown into one of the company’s most important. The country now has more than 500 million internet users, second only to China, with growth that has drawn all the American technology giants.

Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. are plowing billions into the market to gain users and set the foundation for future revenue growth. The country is fertile ground as the companies vie to become the gateway for first-time internet users going online to buy products, stream content, find information and make payments.

In the last decade, Google has successfully launched several products in India, including a Google Saathi service to bring women in rural areas online and its popular Google Pay service.

“This mission is deeply personal to me,” Pichai said. “When I was young, every new piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow. But I always had to wait for it to arrive from someplace else. Today, people in India no longer have to wait for technology.”

(Updates with CEO comment in third paragraph)

https://www.bloomberg.com/technology

 

[Yaseen1]

it is huge investment and is expected as google is lead by indian experts

 

[Hiraa]

Google says it will spend $10 billion to accelerate digitization in India

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet. (File photo: Reuters)
BloombergMonday 13 July 2020
Text size outbreak of the coronavirus has made clear the importance of technology for conducting business and for connecting with friends and family.



“This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” he said of the India Digitization Fund.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app

Google said the investments would focus on several key areas:

• Enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, including Hindi, Tamil and Punjabi
• Building new products and services that are relevant to India’s unique needs
• Empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation
• Leveraging technology and artificial intelligence for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture

Google, founded in 1998 in Silicon Valley, entered India six years later with offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Its focus at the time was search services to help people find relevant information on everything from Bollywood news to cricket scores, Pichai said.

The India business has since grown into one of the company’s most important. The country now has more than 500 million internet users, second only to China, with growth that has drawn all the American technology giants.

Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. are plowing billions into the market to gain users and set the foundation for future revenue growth. The country is fertile ground as the companies vie to become the gateway for first-time internet users going online to buy products, stream content, find information and make payments.

In the last decade, Google has successfully launched several products in India, including a Google Saathi service to bring women in rural areas online and its popular Google Pay service.

“This mission is deeply personal to me,” Pichai said. “When I was young, every new piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow. But I always had to wait for it to arrive from someplace else. Today, people in India no longer have to wait for technology.”


https://english.alarabiya.net/en/bu...lion-to-accelerate-digitization-in-India.html

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

This should ring alarm bells.

 

[Goenitz]

This should ring alarm bells.

data privacy, monopoly or that Pak is missed out?

 

[xyx007]

where is our lady Tania Aidrus plans to lead Pakistan into the digital age?
Last time Modi sold Laddak to China. This time he sold his entire nation Data just for 10 billion$ in the hand of Google Businessman. Great Job, Modi Ji.

 

[xyx007]

Last time Modi sold Laddak to China. This time he sold his entire nation Data just for 10 billion$ in the hand of Google Businessman. Great Job, Modi Ji. Should learn from China, Don't depend on Western technology, bring your own digital breakthrough. We all know it is pressure building tactics of Tech companies on Pakistan since it launches cybersecurity bill.

 

[Hephaestus]

https://www.news18.com/news/tech/go...ogle-for-india-digitization-fund-2713965.html


Google has announced a big investment in the Indian economy. At the Google For India 2020 virtual event, Sundar Pichai announced the new $10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund. Through this, Google will invest approximately $10 billion in India over the next 5-7 years. It will be a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure, and ecosystem investments. Pichai says this is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy. “Thanks to Prime Minister Modi’s vision for Digital India, the country has made huge progress in getting a billion Indians online. Low-cost smartphones combined with affordable data, and world-class telecom infrastructure, have paved the way for new opportunities,” says Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, and Alphabet.

Google talks about how more than 26 million small businesses are now discoverable on Google Search and Google Maps in India with as many as 150 million users every month. Digital payments have played a big part in the change, which includes Google Pay that uses UPI payments for money transfers and bill payments. “The global pandemic has supercharged the adoption of digital tools. Digital payments, for example, have enabled families across India to access goods and services during lockdowns. For them, grocery delivery services have been invaluable—though I’m sure my grandmother misses haggling over the price of her vegetables in person,” says Pichai. Google talks about the program for the internet in villages, called Internet Saathi. They say it has helped more than 30 million women across India gain digital skills to improve their lives and their communities.

 

[-blitzkrieg-]

data privacy, monopoly or that Pak is missed out?

data privacy ofcourse.

some background
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/pakistan-internet-censorship.html?auth=login-facebook

Facebook, Google and Twitter Rebel Against Pakistan’s Censorship Rules
The battle is the latest skirmish between internet companies and governments over who decides what content should be online.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and others have banded together and threatened to leave Pakistan and its 70 million internet users in digital darkness.Credit...Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Vindu Goel and Salman Masood

• Feb. 27, 2020

MUMBAI, India — When Pakistan’s government unveiled some of the world’s most sweeping rules on internet censorship this month, global internet companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter were expected to comply or face severe penalties — including the potential shutdown of their services.

Instead, the tech giants banded together and threatened to leave the country and its 70 million internet users in digital darkness.

Through a group called the Asia Internet Coalition, they wrote a scathing letter to Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan. In it, the companies warned that “the rules as currently written would make it extremely difficult for AIC Members to make their services available to Pakistani users and businesses.”

Their public rebellion, combined with pressure and lawsuits from local civil libertarians, forced the government to retreat. The law remains on the books, but Pakistani officials pledged this week to review the regulations and undertake an “extensive and broad-based consultation process with all relevant segments of civil society and technology companies.”

Continue reading the main story

“Because Pakistan does not have any law of data protection, international internet firms are reluctant to comply with the rules,” said Usama Khilji, director of Bolo Bhi, an internet rights organization based in Islamabad, the country’s capital.

The standoff over Pakistan’s digital censorship law, which would give regulators the power to demand the takedown of a wide range of content, is the latest skirmish in an escalating global battle. Facebook, Google and other big tech companies, which have long made their own rules about what is allowed on their services, are increasingly tangling with national governments seeking to curtail internet content that they consider harmful, distasteful or simply a threat to their power.

• Thanks for reading The Times.

Subscribe to The Times

India is expected to unveil new censorship guidelines any day now, including a requirement that encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp tell the government how specific messages moved within their networks. The country has also proposed a new data privacy law that would restrict the activities of tech companies while exempting the government from privacy rules.

Vietnam passed its own cybersecurity law in 2018, with similar provisions to what Pakistan passed. Singapore recently began using its rules against “fake news” to go after critics and opposition figures by forcing social networks like Facebook to either take down certain posts or add the government’s response to them.

The unified resistance by Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies in Pakistan is highly unusual. Companies often protest these types of regulations, but they rarely threaten to actually leave a country. Google pulled its search engine out of China in 2010 rather than submit to government censorship of search results, but LinkedIn agreed to self-censor its content when it entered China in 2014 and Apple acceded to Chinese demands to remove apps that customers had used to bypass the country’s Great Firewall.

Last time Modi sold Laddak to China. This time he sold his entire nation Data just for 10 billion$ in the hand of Google Businessman. Great Job, Modi Ji.

you definitely dont know whats at play here.

 

[AfrazulMandal]

Google says it will spend $10 billion to accelerate digitization in India

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet. (File photo: Reuters)
BloombergMonday 13 July 2020
Text size outbreak of the coronavirus has made clear the importance of technology for conducting business and for connecting with friends and family.



“This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” he said of the India Digitization Fund.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app

Google said the investments would focus on several key areas:

• Enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, including Hindi, Tamil and Punjabi
• Building new products and services that are relevant to India’s unique needs
• Empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation
• Leveraging technology and artificial intelligence for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture

Google, founded in 1998 in Silicon Valley, entered India six years later with offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Its focus at the time was search services to help people find relevant information on everything from Bollywood news to cricket scores, Pichai said.

The India business has since grown into one of the company’s most important. The country now has more than 500 million internet users, second only to China, with growth that has drawn all the American technology giants.

Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. are plowing billions into the market to gain users and set the foundation for future revenue growth. The country is fertile ground as the companies vie to become the gateway for first-time internet users going online to buy products, stream content, find information and make payments.

In the last decade, Google has successfully launched several products in India, including a Google Saathi service to bring women in rural areas online and its popular Google Pay service.

“This mission is deeply personal to me,” Pichai said. “When I was young, every new piece of technology brought new opportunities to learn and grow. But I always had to wait for it to arrive from someplace else. Today, people in India no longer have to wait for technology.”


https://english.alarabiya.net/en/bu...lion-to-accelerate-digitization-in-India.html

I hope Muslims are not excluded since this at least is a private enterprise that CAN benefit everyone.

 

[Yaseen1]

cheap labor in india is needed by google after trump banned H1B visas so google has done this to avoid paying high salaries to u.s citizens and will again waste trump efforts for bringing jobs of IT professionals back to u.s

 

[xyx007]

d
you definitely dont know whats at play here.

Facebook, Google, Twitter spark mutiny over Pakistan censorship demands. I can see these companies have joined forces in a threat to abandon the country entirely. I also read about The Cyber Threat Facing Pakistan; Indian cyberattacks against Pakistan became more serious, given India’s growing cybersecurity cooperation with Israel and recent openly support of China on skirmish. Am I in the right direction? maybe my intel is low, Nav me here.

 

[prashantazazel]

Excellent. There is indeed a lot of scope.

 

[Dustom999]

Very large part of it will be given to ambanis( as investment in jio and partnership). As Mr. Ambani said- Data is the new gold. Google is investing in data control of one of the largest population on earth.

 

[Baba_Yaga]

where is our lady Tania Aidrus plans to lead Pakistan into the digital age?
Last time Modi sold Laddak to China. This time he sold his entire nation Data just for 10 billion$ in the hand of Google Businessman. Great Job, Modi Ji.

Think you are confusing Modi with that Bhutto fellow who literally gifted 5500sq km to China without a fight.