India AI Summit: Google announces new AI partnerships, $60 million in grants as Pichai meets PM Modi

Google on Wednesday announced new partnerships and funding programmes aimed at expanding artificial intelligence adoption and digital connectivity, as its chief executive Sundar Pichai met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of India’s AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.

Pichai said Google would roll out the America–India Connect initiative to build new strategic fibre-optic routes linking the United States, India and multiple locations across the Southern Hemisphere.

"Today, we are announcing the India-America Connect Initiative, which will deliver new sub-sea cable routes to increase AI connectivity between India and the US and multiple locations across the southern hemisphere," Alphabet CEO said at India Impact AI Summit.

The company also announced two $30 million grant programmes through Google.org.

AI for Government Innovation Impact Challenge will support governments using AI to modernise public services, while AI for Science Impact Challenge will help researchers drive scientific breakthroughs.

“Governments are in a unique position to shape AI’s trajectory,” Google Senior Vice President James Manyika said in a blog post.

He cited internal data showing that while nearly three-quarters of public servants globally already use AI tools, fewer than one in five believe their governments are deploying the technology effectively.

Google DeepMind said it is partnering with Indian government bodies and local institutions to expand access to its AI-for-science models and set up innovation hubs powered by generative AI assistants.

It also unveiled a collaboration with Karmayogi Bharat to support Mission Karmayogi, India’s flagship programme to build a future-ready civil service.

Google said it would introduce new product updates for Indian users, including a live speech-to-speech translation model, new self-study features and engineering entrance exam practice tests within its Gemini app.

Pichai said on X he had met Modi earlier in the day and discussed how Google was supporting India’s push to embed AI across sectors including healthcare, agriculture, startups and multilingual information access.

“It was great to meet Prime Minister Modi. We discussed how Google is helping with his mission to infuse AI at all levels in India,” Pichai wrote.

Modi said he spoke with Pichai about India’s AI efforts and potential collaboration with Google to support students and professionals in the field.

“It was a delight to meet Mr Sundar Pichai on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in Delhi,” Modi posted on X.