Amazon and Google have committed to increasing their investments in India as the internet titans attempt to accelerate expansion in a critical region.
Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have committed to increasing their investments in India as the internet titans attempt to accelerate expansion in a critical region. The decision follows a meeting at the White House on Friday between US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with key technology executives from Amazon and Google.
Amazon has pledged an additional $15 billion investment in India by 2030. This includes AWS’s plans to invest $12.7 billion in cloud infrastructure in the South Asian country to fulfil expanding client demand. Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said that Google will construct a global financial technology centre at Gujarat International Finance Tech-City, also known as GIFT City in Modi’s home state.
“It’ll cement India’s fin-tech leadership,” he said, pointing to Indian developments like the Unified Payments Interface, which allows individuals to use their smartphones as a commerce tool, and Aadhaar. “We’re going to build on that foundation and take it globally,” Pichai stated.
UPI is India’s state-backed peer-to-peer payment mechanism, and it is used by various companies, including Google, to provide services in the country. Aadhaar is a biometric ID created by the government for citizens that is used for payments and other services.
Google will also expand the availability of its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard to more Indian languages, according to Pichai. Google has previously stated that it is working on an AI model that can handle more than 100 Indian languages across speech and text, with the goal of expanding internet access beyond the country’s urban English-speaking minority. “Google’s decision to establish its global fintech operations centre in GIFT City is a testament to India’s growing prominence in the fintech landscape,” GIFT City CEO Tapan Ray stated. “We are excited to host Google.”
Most major US internet companies, including Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon, Google, and Twitter, continue to view India as a high-priority market, but they have all encountered regulatory challenges. During Modi’s visit to the United States, a series of economic transactions were announced, including Micron Technology Inc. investing more than $800 million in a $2.75 billion semiconductor manufacturing and testing facility in India.
