Google has announced a fresh push to strengthen India’s artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, committing $8 million to support four of the central government’s AI Centres of Excellence (CoEs), alongside funding initiatives for India-based AI startups and AI-led healthcare solutions. The move underlines the tech giant’s growing focus on India as a key market for AI research, talent, and real world deployment.
The $8 million commitment will be used to back government-led CoEs that are focused on advancing AI research, innovation, and large scale applications. These centres play a critical role in bridging academia, industry, and public sector use cases, particularly in areas such as agriculture, education, healthcare, and governance. Google’s support is expected to help scale research capabilities, enable collaborations, and accelerate the development of practical AI solutions tailored to India’s needs.
In addition to supporting CoEs, Google said it will expand its backing of India-based AI startups, with a special emphasis on healthcare focused AI applications. The company has been increasingly active in enabling early stage startups through grants, cloud credits, and technical mentorship, as it looks to foster responsible and inclusive AI development.
As part of its Indic language efforts, Google also plans to invest $2 million to establish a new Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay. The hub will focus on developing AI tools and models that can better understand, process, and generate Indian languages, helping make digital services more accessible across the country’s diverse linguistic landscape. This initiative aligns with Google’s broader goal of building AI systems that work effectively for non-English speakers.
Separately, Google will provide grants of $50,000 each to Indian startups Gnani.AI and CoRover.AI. The funding will support their efforts to build and improve voice AI models, including conversational and speech based technologies that can be deployed across customer service, enterprise, and public sector applications.
Together, these initiatives reflect Google’s strategy to deepen its engagement with India’s AI ecosystem by supporting research institutions, startups, and language technologies that can drive inclusive digital growth
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