Google DeepMind Touts India as Key AI Hub
Pushmeet Kohli of Google DeepMind stated that India is in a "perfect position" to leverage artificial intelligence. He cited the country's talent pool and growing digital infrastructure as key advantages for the internationalization of AI research and development.
- Pushmeet Kohli, an Indian-British computer scientist, is the Vice President of research at Google DeepMind, where he heads the "Science and Strategic Initiatives Unit" and has led key projects like AlphaFold. His academic journey began with a BTech from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, before he moved to the U.K. for his PhD. - Google has been expanding its AI footprint in India, having established a dedicated AI research lab in Bengaluru in 2019 to focus on advancing fundamental research and applying it to solve challenges in areas like healthcare and agriculture. - In late 2025, Google announced an $8 million investment to support four government-backed AI Centres of Excellence at institutions like IISc Bengaluru and IIT Kanpur. These centers will focus on using AI to address national priorities, including non-communicable diseases, urban governance, education, and agriculture. - The Government of India is also making significant investments, launching the IndiaAI Mission in March 2024 with an outlay of ₹10,372 crore (approximately $1.24 billion) to build a comprehensive domestic AI ecosystem. - The country's AI talent pool is projected to more than double from approximately 650,000 in 2022 to over 1.25 million by 2027. As of 2024, India was the second-largest contributor to GitHub AI projects globally. - This talent growth is supported by a rapidly expanding digital framework; India's data center capacity is projected to grow by four to five times by 2030, and the country has seen a 1,452% increase in broadband connections between 2014 and 2024. - As part of its investment, Google is building a major AI hub in Visakhapatnam, which will include a new data center campus and an international subsea cable gateway to bolster connectivity and compute capacity. - To address India's linguistic diversity, Google has provided a $2 million founding grant to establish the Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay, aiming to ensure AI systems can effectively serve the nation's many languages.
