Bengaluru:

Google said today that it is working with MeitY ‘Startup Hub’ to train 10,000 startups in artificial intelligence (AI), as the tech giant expanded access to its AI models and introduced new language tools for the developers in the country.

At its ‘I/O Connect’ event here, the company unveiled a range of tools, programmes and partnerships to empower Indian developers and startups to be at the forefront of the global AI revolution.

The company said that developers in India now have expanded access to Google’s powerful AI models with the two million token context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2, the next generation of open models.

“We’re committed to empowering Indian innovators to harness AI’s full potential, creating solutions that not only address India’s unique needs but also shape the future of AI globally,” said Ambharish Kenghe, Vice President, Google.

The opportunities with multimodal, mobile, and multilingual AI are immense, and we’re thrilled to be a part of India’s AI journey, he added.

“The fastest way to build with Gemini is through its developer platform Google AI Studio, and India has one of the largest developer bases on Google AI Studio today,” said the company.

The Google DeepMind India team has expanded Project Vaani, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), which provides developers with over 14,000 hours of speech data across 58 languages, collected from 80,000 speakers in 80 districts.

The team also introduced IndicGenBench, a comprehensive benchmark to evaluate the generation capabilities of LLMs on Indic languages, and open-sourced CALM (Composition of Language Models).

The company said it is introducing Google Wallet APIs to simplify the integration of loyalty programs, tickets, and gift cards.

For developers using the Google Maps Platform, India-specific pricing is being introduced with up to 70 per cent lower costs on most APIs.

Google is also collaborating with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), offering developers building for ONDC up to 90 per cent off on select Google Maps Platform APIs.

“From consumer experiences to agriculture, to social enterprises, AI has the power to address some of the biggest challenges of our time across many sectors and industries,” said Seshu Ajjarapu, Senior Director, Google DeepMind.

The company will also soon launch the Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API, a limited availability tool designed to make agricultural practices more data-driven and efficient.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tech giants Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 TWh of electricity in 2023, surpassing the consumption of more than 100 countries, new research claims.

Analysis by Michael Thomas, shared on X, states that both Google and Microsoft used the same amount of energy as Azerbaijan, which has a GDP of $78.7 billion. In 2023, Google’s revenue was $307.4 billion, and Microsoft’s was $211.9 billion, Tech Radar reported. 

This massive energy usage underscores the significant environmental impact of these companies but also highlights their potential to lead more sustainable initiatives.

For comparison, Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, and Tunisia each consumed 19 TWh, while Jordan consumed 20 TWh. Libya (25 TWh) and Slovakia (26 TWh) used slightly more power.

The comparison between entire countries and two single companies emphasizes the colossal energy demands of Big Tech. It also points to the environmental impacts of data centers that power cloud services and the new generation of artificial intelligence.

The significant electricity consumption of these companies calls for ongoing discussions around sustainability and renewable energy adoption. Both Google and Microsoft have pledged to be carbon-free or carbon-negative by the end of the decade and have significantly scaled up investments in cleaner energies and energy matching.

With market caps of $2.294 trillion and $3.372 trillion respectively, Google and Microsoft are currently the world’s fourth and second-most valuable companies. Given the scale of their operations, comparable to entire nations, their actions in preventing and reversing environmental damage are closely watched.

New Delhi:
Google’s AI assistant Gemini is now available as an app for Android smartphone users in India with support for English and nine other Indian languages. iPhone users will have to wait a few weeks for Gemini’s roll-out, according to a Google blog post.

Here Are 5 Points On Google Gemini’s India Chapter:

New Delhi:

Amid the growing debate over artificial intelligence (AI) models, Google on Tuesday launched its AI assistant Gemini’s mobile app in India.

The Gemini app is now available in India, supporting English and nine languages — Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

The app allows users to type, talk, or even add an image to get the assistance they need.

“We’re also adding these local languages to Gemini Advanced, plus other new features, and launching Gemini in Google Messages in English,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X social media platform.

According to the company, Gemini Advanced users in India can now access the power of Gemini 1.5 Pro, its most advanced model, in nine languages.

“Additionally, we’re unlocking new features in Gemini Advanced such as new data analysis capabilities and file uploads, and also launching the ability to chat with Gemini in Google Messages, starting in English,” said Amar Subramanya, Vice President, Engineering, Gemini Experiences.

On iOS, Gemini access is rolling out directly from the Google app over the next few weeks.

With a 1 million token context window, Gemini Advanced now has the longest context of any widely available consumer chatbot worldwide.

“We’re also introducing Gemini in Google Messages to give you another way to collaborate with Gemini on your phone,” said the company.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is on the cusp of achieving a rare milestone for a non-founder tech executive: a 10-figure fortune.

Since Pichai, 51, became CEO of Google in 2015, the stock has surged more than 400%, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 and Nasdaq over the same period. It hit a fresh record Friday after the company’s first-quarter earnings beat expectations, boosted by AI-driven growth in its cloud computing unit. It also introduced a dividend for the first time in its history.

That rally, alongside hefty stock awards that have made him one of the world’s highest-paid executives, has boosted Pichai’s fortune to nearly $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

It’s a remarkable rise for the native of Chennai, India, who grew up in a two-room apartment where he and his younger brother slept on the living room floor. During much of his childhood, the Pichais didn’t have a television or a car, he has said in interviews. At times, they didn’t even have running water.

The family got their first rotary telephone when he was 12, which he said introduced him to the conveniences of technology. That, along with a healthy curiosity about his father’s job as an electrical engineer for the British conglomerate GEC, attracted the young Pichai to the tech industry.

He excelled at school, eventually landing a spot at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, where he studied engineering. When he won a scholarship to Stanford University, his father withdrew $1,000 from the family’s savings – more than his annual salary – to cover the cost of Pichai’s plane ticket and other expenses.

“My dad and mom did what a lot of parents did at the time,” Pichai said in a 2014 interview. “They sacrificed a lot of their life and used a lot of their disposable income to make sure their children were educated.”

After earning another advanced degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a stint as a consultant at McKinsey, he joined Google in 2004 as a product manager, leading the development of major projects like the Google Toolbar and Google Chrome.

‘Great Facilitator’

Pichai’s humility and ability to build consensus emerged early on, said Keval Desai, who worked with him during his first years at Google.

“He’s not looking to be the most dominant voice,” said Desai, who is now a founder and managing director at Shakti, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. “He’s very comfortable in his own skin. It allowed him very early on to be a great facilitator across these strong, opinionated people.”

Pichai was selected in 2015 by co-founder Larry Page to be Google’s CEO, while Page became CEO of newly formed holding company Alphabet. Pichai took over that role as well in 2019 when Page and co-founder Sergey Brin – two of the 10 richest people in the world, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index – stepped back from day-to-day management.

“There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future,” Brin and Page, who combined have a net worth of almost $300 billion, said of Pichai in a 2019 letter.

In his time as CEO, Pichai has overseen a major expansion of the company’s product line with the addition of Google Assistant, Google Home, Google Pixel, Google Workspace and more. He was also an early adopter of artificial intelligence, calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

While Alphabet has been criticized for its AI offerings and some investors have questioned its ability to compete with OpenAI, last week’s earnings provided reassurance that its spending on the technology is starting to pay off.

Pichai’s net worth includes $424 million in current shareholdings as well as roughly $600 million from share sales since he became CEO. Bloomberg’s wealth index assumes those sales were taxed and reinvested in the stock market.

Pichai’s status as a near-billionaire is a reminder of the value that he has created during his time at the helm of Google, Desai said.

“What it says to me is first and foremost that he has done right by shareholders,” Desai said. “He’s benefited because Google’s stock has done really well.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A group of workers at Alphabet Inc’s Google have filed a complaint with a US labor board claiming the tech company unlawfully fired them for protesting its cloud contract with the Israeli government.

The complaint was filed late Monday with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to No Tech For Apartheid, a group affiliated with some of the workers. The group said the complaint alleges that by firing the workers, Google interfered with their rights under US labor law to advocate for better working conditions.

Reuters could not immediately obtain a copy of the complaint. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google this month said it had fired 28 employees who disrupted work at unspecified office locations while protesting Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract jointly awarded to Google and Amazon.com to supply the Israeli government with cloud services.

The workers claim the project supports Israel’s development of military tools. Google has said the Nimbus contract “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

Zelda Montes, a former Google employee who was arrested during a protest of Project Nimbus, said in a statement that Google fired workers to suppress organizing and send a message to its workforce that dissent would not be tolerated.

“Google is attempting to instill fear in employees,” Montes said.

The workers in the NLRB complaint are seeking to be reinstated to their jobs with back pay, and a statement from Google that it will not violate workers’ rights to organize.

The NLRB general counsel, which acts as a prosecutor, reviews complaints and attempts to settle claims it finds to have merit. If that fails, the general counsel can pursue cases before administrative judges and a five-member board appointed by the US president.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti recently claimed that in modern times, one cannot become a CEO in America unless they are of Indian descent. Mr Garcetti’s humorous quip came at the 2024 Indiaspora AI Summit at Stanford University recently. 

“The successes have happened, more than one in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now are Indian immigrants who studied in the US. The old joke was you could not become a CEO in the US if you were Indian, now the joke is you cannot become a CEO in America if you are not Indian, whether it is Google, Microsoft or Starbucks, people have come and made a big difference,” Mr Garcetti said. 

#WATCH | Delhi: US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti says, “The successes have happened, more than 1 in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now are Indian immigrants who studied in the US. The old joke was you could not become a CEO in the US if you are Indian, now the joke is you… pic.twitter.com/gTdvXng9mi

— ANI (@ANI) April 26, 2024

Google and its parent organisation Alphabet Inc. are overseen by Sundar Pichai while operations at Microsoft and Starbucks are led by Satya Nadella and Laxman Narasimhan, respectively. 

Speaking alongside Mr Garcetti, Indian-origin business leaders echoed similar sentiments while appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, particularly his role in positioning India as a global hub of innovation and progress. 

“India is perceived very differently in the global space. It’s a space of innovation. It’s a space of human capital. It’s a space of progress and innovation. And as we look forward, what Modi has been able to do is put India into the global map as a credible innovator, leader for all countries to invest in and grow,” said Informatica CEO Amit Walia.

Similarly, Ashutosh Kulkarni, CEO of Elastic, commended PM Modi’s government for its openness to innovation and industry, noting India’s vast potential for progress. Navin Chaddha of Mayfield Fund hailed the “amazing” era under PM Modi’s leadership.

The Indiaspora AI Summit, besides global tech tycoons, was also attended by Rajya Sabha MP Satnam Singh Sandhu.

The chief executives of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are among the high-profile members of a new federal board created to advise the U.S. government on the “safe and secure” development of artificial intelligence.

The new advisory board will help authorities combat AI-related disruptions that may “impact national or economic security, public health, or safety,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement released Friday.

President Joe Biden directed department Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to set up the 22-member board.

Mr. Mayorkas said that while AI is a transformative tool, “it presents real risks.”

“The Board will help DHS stay ahead of evolving threats posed by hostile nation-state actors and reinforce our national security,” the statement said.

AI may be used by unfriendly forces to enable larger scale, faster attacks against targets like pipelines, railways and other critical infrastructure, it said.

“Artificial Intelligence is the most transformative technology of our time, and we must ensure it is deployed safely and responsibly,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the statement.

Other high-powered members named to the board include the CEOs of Adobe, Alphabet, Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Delta Airlines and Northrop Grumman.

The board also includes academics and politicians, including the governor of Maryland.

The board is to convene for the first time in early May and provide recommendations for the safe adoption of AI “in the essential services Americans depend on every day,” it said.

New York:

Google fired 28 employees following a disruptive sit-down protest over the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government, a Google spokesperson said Thursday.

The Tuesday demonstration was organized by the group “No Tech for Apartheid,” which has long opposed “Project Nimbus,” Google’s joint $1.2 billion contract with Amazon to provide cloud services to the government of Israel.

Video of the demonstration showed police arresting Google workers in Sunnyvale, California, in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s, according to a post by the advocacy group on X, formerly Twitter.

Kurian’s office was occupied for 10 hours, the advocacy group said.

Workers held signs including “Googlers against Genocide,” a reference to accusations surrounding Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“No Tech for Apartheid,” which also held protests in New York and Seattle, pointed to an April 12 Time magazine article reporting a draft contract of Google billing the Israeli Ministry of Defense more than $1 million for consulting services.

A “small number” of employees “disrupted” a few Google locations, but the protests are “part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google,” a Google spokesperson said. 

“After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety,” the Google spokesperson said. “We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”

Israel is one of “numerous” governments for which Google provides cloud computing services, the Google spokesperson said.

“This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” the Google spokesperson said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

California:

Alphabet-owned Google is laying off an unspecified number of employees, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday, marking the latest cuts at the technology giant as it cracks down on costs.

The Google spokesperson said the layoffs are not company-wide and that affected employees will be able to apply for internal roles, but did not specify the number of employees impacted nor the teams involved.

A small percentage of the impacted roles will move to hubs the company is investing in, including India, Chicago, Atlanta and Dublin.

The layoffs follow a slew of job cuts across Google, and the tech and media industry this year, adding to fears that layoffs may continue as companies grapple with economic uncertainty.

“Throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” the spokesperson added.

Employees across several of Google’ teams in its real estate and finance departments have been affected, according to a Business Insider report on Wednesday. The finance teams affected include Google’s treasury, business services, and revenue cash operations, it added.

Google’s finance chief, Ruth Porat, sent an email to staff saying the restructuring includes expanding growth to Bangalore, Mexico City, and Dublin, according to the Business Insider report.

Google let go of hundreds of workers across multiple teams in January including its engineering, hardware and assistant teams as the company ramps up investment and builds its artificial intelligence offerings.

Company CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly told employees at the start of the year to expect more job cuts.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)