Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, on Wednesday, 15 July, said that the joint collaboration between Google and Jio will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don't currently own a smartphone.
Google is now a strategic partner of Jio Platforms with an investment of Rs 33,737 crore.
“The pace and scale of digital transformation in India is hugely inspiring for us and reinforces our view that building products for India first helps us build better products for users everywhere,” Pichai said.
He also emphasised that the move will improve mobile experience for all.
A Google India blog shared by him said that this is the first investment from the 'Google For India Digitization Fund' announced earlier this week, which aims to accelerate India’s digital economy over the next five to seven years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments.
The fund has committed Rs 75,000 crore to accelerate India's digital economy for the next five years, Economic Times reported.
“Our investment of $4.5 million in Jio is the first and biggest investment we will make towards this effort”, ET quoted him as saying on Wednesday.
On Monday, PM Modi had also spoken to the 48-year-old CEO and shared on Twitter saying, “I was delighted to know more about the efforts of Google in several sectors, be it in education, learning, digital India, furthering digital payments and more.”
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