Google CEO Sundar Pichai announces Rs 75,000 cr digitisation fund for India

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday announced a Rs 75,000 crore digitisation fund for India soon after he spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed issues such as leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers and youth.

“Excited to announce Google for India Digitisation Fund. Through it, we’ll invest Rs 75,000 Cr or approx US$10 Bn into India over next 5-7 yrs. We’ll do this through mix of equity investments, partnerships and operational infrastructure in ecosystem investments,” said Pichai, the chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc and its subsidiary Google LLC, reports ANI

PM Modi, in a virtual interaction with Pichai, also discussed ways to transform lives of India’s farmers. “This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with Sundar Pichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter.

During the meeting, the PM and Pichai spoke about the new work culture that was emerging in the times of COVID-19. “We discussed the challenges the global pandemic has brought to areas such as sports. We also talked about the importance of data security and cyber safety,” the PM tweeted.

Pichai and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad would be addressing the sixth annual edition of “Google for India” later in the day.