NEW DELHI: Alphabet Inc. unveiled several new initiatives to support its expansion in India, including new fiber-optic routes that will connect the country with the US and other locations in the Southern Hemisphere.
Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai talked up the company’s efforts at a high-profile AI summit in New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making the case that his country can lead in artificial intelligence. Pichai is one of a long list of prominent CEOs supporting the effort.
Google’s parent company said the latest push, the America-India Connect initiative, will deliver new fiber-optic lines to improve the speed and reliability of connectivity between India and other countries. The company has already been building subsea cables in the Pacific, Africa and around Australia.
Alphabet’s Google said last year that it would invest about $15 billion building an AI infrastructure hub in southern India over the next five years, its biggest bet on the fast-growing country. The company is on a global spending blitz, saying earlier this month its capital expenditures would reach as much as $185 billion this year alone.
"It’s an extraordinary moment; we’re investing to meet the moment,” Pichai said in Delhi, where he also met with Modi.
The company also announced a $30 million effort from its philanthropic arm, Google.org, to improve public services with AI, along with another $30 million to support researchers using AI for scientific breakthroughs. Google’s AI lab DeepMind is also establishing a new partnership with the Indian government and local institutions to expand the use of its frontier AI for Science models.
Many of the leading US AI companies have been expanding in India, both to tap the country’s technical talent and to claim customers in the world’s biggest market. Anthropic PBC appointed former Microsoft Corp. executive Irina Ghose to lead its India operations in January.
Google is already a big player in this shift. Last year, it opened its largest campus in Bangalore, complete with indoor mini golf, pickle ball courts and cafeterias serving cardamom tea. – Bloomberg
