US tech giants announce India deals at AI summit

AFP | New Delhi

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Google said it would build new subsea cables from India and chip titan Nvidia unveiled tie-ups with computing firms yesterday as tech giants rushed to announce deals and investments at a global AI conference in New Delhi.

This week’s AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual gathering to discuss how to govern the fast-evolving technology -- and also an opportunity for India to raise its profile in the booming sector.

“India’s going to have an extraordinary trajectory with AI and we want to be a partner,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told reporters as the US firm unveiled a plan to boost connectivity to the South Asian country.

New direct undersea connections from India to Singapore, South Africa and Australia will be constructed, it said, touting faster connections as demand for computing power, including AI, ramps up.

It is part of Google’s $15 billion investment announced in October to construct its largest AI data centre hub outside the United States, in Visakhapatnam, a port city in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Also on Wednesday, the California-based Nvidia -- the world’s most valuable company -- said it was teaming up with three Indian cloud computing providers to provide advanced processors for data centres that can train and run AI systems.

Dozens of world leaders and ministerial delegations are in New Delhi for the summit to discuss the opportunities and threats, from job losses to misinformation, that AI poses.

Last year India leapt to third place -- overtaking South Korea and Japan -- in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford University researchers.

But despite its plans for largescale infrastructure and grand ambitions for innovation, experts say the country has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.