Google CEO Sundar Pichai Outlines Vision to Brings Millions of Indians Online

Advertisement
By Agence France-Presse | Updated: 16 December 2015 19:12 IST
Google's new chief executive Sundar Pichai used his first official visit to India Wednesday to outline plans to bring hundreds of millions of Indians online, including installing free wifi at railway stations.

The Indian-born Pichai said the first train station, Mumbai Central, would go online in January and the tech giant intended to cover 100 of India's stations by the end of 2016.

India is a vast yet challenging market for Google with only a quarter of its 1.2 billion citizens online, most of whom access the web through cheap smartphones which often run on slow 2G networks.

Many Indian Internet users cannot afford expensive mobile data and instead wait for Wi-Fi connections to go online, making the 10 million people who pass through the target stations each day a captive audience.

Advertisement

"Every day there are thousands of Indian Internet users coming online for the first time, taking their journey in computing," said Pichai, who grew up in Chennai and joined Google in 2004 as a product manager.

Advertisement

"We are just barely getting started," said Pichai, who was named CEO in August.

"Given that India is embarking on the cutting edge of the mobile revolution, we think what we build in India will apply globally to many, many places."

Advertisement

Google has also made its Maps and YouTube products partially available offline and created data-light versions of web pages that allow them to load more easily on slow Indian connections.

Another challenge is the linguistic diversity of India, which has more than 20 official languages and fewer than 200 million English-speaking Internet users.

Advertisement

A new virtual keyboard allows users to type in 11 Indic languages including Assamese and Punjabi, while voice searches recognise both Hindi and "Hinglish" - a mix of Hindi and English heard in many parts of the country.

Google also announced a programme Wednesday to train two million developers in its Android operating system over three years, in partnership with more than 30 Indian universities.

 

Catch the latest from the Consumer Electronics Show on Gadgets 360, at our CES 2026 hub.

Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Tipped to Launch With These Camera Improvements
  2. Here's How Much the Realme 16 Pro Series Could Cost in India
  3. LG Just Unveiled These New Xboom Speaker Models Ahead of CES 2026
  4. Samsung Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Ultra Spotted in Leaked Hands-On Images
  5. Xiaomi Mix 5 to Support Under-Display 3D Facial Recognition, Tipster Claims
  6. Hearing Static Noise on Your iPhone 17 Pro Max? You're Not Alone
  7. Apple Could Emerge as a Major AI Powerhouse in 2026: Report
  8. India's Blinkit, Zomato Tailor Quick Commerce for Tier 2, Tier 3 Cities
  9. China Proposes New AI Rules to Safeguard Minors, Prevent Harmful Output
  10. What is HDFC Bank Statement Password: How to Open Statement PDF, More
  1. Beauty (2025) OTT Release Date: When and Where to Watch Ankith Koyya and Nilakhi Patra Starrer Online?
  2. Phoenix (2025) Now Streaming Online: What You Need to Know Tamil Action-Packed Thriller Starring Surya Sethupathi
  3. Elon Musk's xAI Buys Third Building to Expand AI Compute Power
  4. LG Xboom Stage 501, Xboom Blast, Xboom Mini, and Xboom Rock Announced Ahead of CES 2026
  5. Apple Could Emerge as a Major AI Powerhouse in 2026: Report
  6. Asus to Raise Prices of Some PC Models as Global Memory Shortage Persists: Report
  7. Redmi Turbo 5 Pro Reportedly Bags 3C Certification, Charging Details Revealed
  8. Samsung Galaxy A57 Could Use Flexible OLED Screens Sourced From Chinese Supplier: Report
  9. Fast Fashion, Delivery Apps Like Blinkit, Swiggy Tap India's Next Billion Consumers
  10. China Proposes New AI Rules to Safeguard Minors, Prevent Harmful Output
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.