Google to focus on investing in women-led early-stage startups

Google aims to focus on investing in women-led early-stage startups through its ₹75,000 crore India Digitisation Fund, said a senior company official on Monday.

The company had launched $10 billion about ₹75,000 crore as per the prevailing exchange rate at the end of 2020 to make access to the internet affordable.

Through Google India Digitisation Fund (IDF), the company bought a 7.73 per cent stake in Jio for $4.5 billion and a 1.2 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for $700 million.

The company announced several projects powered by artificial intelligence, including speech technology, voice and video search etc.

The company announced a collaboration with Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science to collect speech data from 773 districts across India to fine-tune its language translation and search technology.

Google announced a grant of $1 million to set up India's first responsible AI centre at IIT Madras.