Google unveils India-US subsea cable initiative, USD 30 mn AI science challenge, new skilling push

New Delhi: Betting big on India's AI potential, Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday announced a new subsea cable initiative to boost AI connectivity between India, the US and other locations, alongside partnerships for cloud infrastructure platform support to over 20 million public servants across 800 districts.

Pichai, who is here to attend the AI Impact Summit 2026, said the recently announced USD 15-billion AI hub at Vizag in Andhra Pradesh will house a gigawatt-scale compute facility and an international subsea cable gateway. When finished, it will bring jobs and benefits of cutting-edge AI to people and businesses across India, said the top boss of Google, the tech company behind foundational AI models such as Gemini and Gemma, which serve as the backbone for enhanced search, cloud services, and enterprise-grade tools.

"I believe India is going to have an extraordinary trajectory with AI, and we want to be a partner," he said at a media event held on the sidelines of the Summit.

Pichai highlighted India's extraordinary potential in AI. "AI is the biggest platform shift of our lifetime...for countries like India, AI presents a chance to leapfrog age-old gaps and create new opportunities."

He emphasised applications spanning healthcare, education, climate resilience, and more, and noted India's high adoption of AI-enabled voice and visual search.

He announced the India-America Connect Initiative - a new series of subsea cable routes to enhance AI connectivity between the US, India, and multiple locations across the Southern Hemisphere.

Alongside this, Google unveiled major skilling programmes in India, including the Google AI Professional Certificate for students and early-career professionals, "landmark" partnerships with Karma Yogi Bharat.

Google Cloud will provide a secure infrastructure for a platform supporting more than 20 million public servants across 800 districts and in 18 Indian languages.

AI is fundamentally shifting the pace of discovery, Pichai said, adding that he is excited to see it accelerating science for real-world impact. From advancing quantum computing to predicting extreme weather, AI is giving tools to understand the universe in deeper ways and solve hard problems in science.

"We're also partnering with Atal Tinkering Labs to bring Gen AI assistance to over 10,000 Indian schools and 11 million students with a focus on robotics and coding in the classroom," he said.

Google, Pichai said, has full-stack connectivity in India, and added, "I have never been more excited about the future we are building together."

Pichai earlier in the day met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "We discussed how Google is helping with his mission to infuse AI at all levels in India to improve health, expand access to information in all languages, support startups, agriculture and so much more," he said in a post on X.

Modi shared pictures of the meeting, saying, "It was a delight to meet Mr. Sundar Pichai on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. Talked about the work India is doing in AI and how Google can work with our talented students and professionals in this field."

At the media event, Pichai stressed India's potential as a global AI leader, noting the technology's transformative applications - from improving healthcare and education to supporting resilient communities. "AI is the biggest platform shift of our lifetime, and one of the most powerful tools to solve problems and improve lives at planetary scale," he said.

Pichai outlined the company's momentum to invest in skilling and people.

To support adoption, Google announced the Google AI Professional Certificate Program in India, targeting students and early-career professionals. Skilling initiatives will also include a landmark collaboration with Karma Yogi Bharat to empower 20 million public servants across 800 districts in 18 languages, and support for Atal Tinkering Labs to bring generative AI assistance to over 10,000 schools and 11 million students.

On research and scientific innovation, Google launched a USD 30-million AI for Science Impact Challenge to support global researchers using AI to accelerate the next generation of scientific breakthroughs.

AI has the biggest impact on people's lives when it is developed and deployed with the institutions that know these communities best, he said, highlighting how Google works with multiple Indian government bodies and local institutions such as IIT metrics.

"Today, we are excited to announce a partnership between Google DeepMind and the Indian government as part of the global National Partnerships Program. This will broaden access to frontier AI capabilities," he said.

The tech honcho described AI as "the biggest platform shift of our lifetime", and one of the most powerful tools to solve problems and improve lives at planetary scale, be it making diseases more detectable and treatable, communities more resilient, or learning more accessible, he said.

"For countries like India, AI presents a chance to leapfrog age-old gaps and create new opportunities."

India happens to be among the places with the greatest adoption and optimism for AI technologies.

"Google has been investing in AI for more than a decade because we see it as the most important way to advance our mission that starts with reimagining the products people use every day," he said and added that AI is changing the way people use Google search.

Google AI Overviews - AI-generated summaries at the top of search results - is one of the most successful launches in search in the past decade, he said. "And AI mode is now available across 35 new languages and 200 countries and territories.

"Indian users are among the highest global adopters of voice and visual search," he said, and promised that up-next is an enhanced model that powers search live in real time, voice and camera, so more people can search what they see in their own language".

AI is also helping to create net new experiences that are truly helpful. The Gemini app - personal AI assistant - is growing rapidly across the world, and India is among the largest markets. It's available in 10 languages in India.