Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday announced a hefty investment of $10 billion as part of a special “Digitisation Fund” set up by his company for India.
Pichai made this announcement while virtually addressing an audience attending the “Google for India 2020” talk from their homes.
“Through it, we'll invest $10 billion into India over next five-seven years. We'll do this through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational infrastructure in ecosystem investments", the Google head said.
The news has spread like wildfire on social media.
The announcement came as Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi and Google chief Pichai discussed ways of attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI) in India. During their virtual interaction, they also talked about the inevitable role that evolving technologies will play in the growth and development of India in the aftermath of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has brought the world to a standstill.
Prime Minister Modi and Pichai also revealed the details of their meeting on Twitter.
Amit Malviya, information and technology officer from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reacted to the development saying the move is significant, especially coming in the midst of a pandemic.
Pichai also touched upon the digital assistance that small and medium businesses (SMBs) need in India. He noted that Google’s digital transaction app called “Google Pay” has witnessed tremendous growth in India.
“More than three million merchants are using Google Pay for Business since it launched and two million users have used Google Pay Spot to find nearby stores in the last two months", Pichai noted.
Google is the third tech giant from the US to invest heavily in India.
Earlier in January, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon visited India and announced an incremental investment of $1 billion of its already invested $5 billion to digitally fuel small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country.
Later in April, Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media behemoth Facebook announced an investment of $5.7 billion in Indian telco Reliance Jio, aiming to create more internet-powered avenues for smaller Indian enterprises.