Start-Up Ecosystem In India Very Sophisticated: Sundar Pichai

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday said that he believed that the start-up ecosystem in India was very sophisticated. He was speaking at the for India 2022 meet in New Delhi. He said, “In the US, its success was on account of access to a population of 300 million. In India, the ability to scale up is the opportunity."

He also said that the government's "Digital India" initiative is an incredible opportunity given the breadth of talent available in the country. "In our experience, we see Digital India playing out at Google. We saw the opportunity on top of UPI and in fact, I use the UPI example in other countries around the world," he added.

Adding further he said, "In the case of AI (Artificial Intelligence), we now have flood forecasting techniques that came out of India before moving to Bangladesh. You will see this trend grow over time. In many such cases, you can leapfrog and go to the next solution faster in India. So, I think it will be a big incentive to do it here and then take it to other countries."

Artificial Intelligence and India's role in boosting it remained one of the big focus areas during Pichai's chat with the Union Minister of Electronics and IT, Ashwini Vaishnaw. "Let me make it clear that we are keen on nurturing AI and see it having a big role in India's tech story," Vaishnaw said.

The minister also highlighted the areas where AI could have a significant impact.

"Be it agriculture, diversity of languages, bridging the gap and making credit accessible to people at the bottom of the pyramid, there is an opportunity everywhere. We will ride on the success of what has been achieved on both payment and identity," he pointed out.

Further in the discussion, Pichai pointed out the need to have certain regulations in policies for better technological advancement. "Technology needs responsible regulations and "India has a leadership role given its scale. It is important to balance and safeguard the framework. As we see it, this is an important moment in time," the Google CEO said.