India's tech policy should balance safety and trust with certainty and innovation: Sundar Pichai

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai

India must balance the safety of people online and open architecture on the internet with a regulatory framework that offers companies certainty and aids innovation, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai on December 19.

Talking to Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Pichai also said that the make-in-India trend will only get stronger going ahead. The Alphabet CEO is expected to meet PM Modi later today to discuss issues related to AI, small businesses in India, and start-ups, among other things.

"It is important to make sure you are balancing putting in safeguards for people, creating an innovative framework so that companies can innovate and a certainty in the legal framework..so I think it’s an important moment in time," said Pichai.

"But through it all hopefully, India will also be a big export economy that will benefit from an open and connected internet and I think getting that balance right will be important,' he added.

Meanwhile, a part of Google's $10 billion India digitisation fund (IDF) has been earmarked for early-stage startups in the country, with a focus on women entrepreneurs.

He also said that the company was leveraging tech to make the everyday lives of Indians better in various ways, and sought that the country's regulatory framework support innovation.

"Tech is much broader than programming alone. Thinking about tech holistically will create opportunities for more people, make a better society," Pichai added.

IT minister Vaishnaw said that the government was creating a regulatory structure that is built around the country's realities and is in tune with the times.

"We are creating three horizontals -- telecom bill, digital India bill and digital data protection. There will be modular regulations for specific sectors. These will be completed in 14-16 months," he added.

Through Google IDF, the company bought a 7.73 percent stake in Jio for $4.5 billion and a 1.2 percent stake in Bharti Airtel for $700 million.

"Moving forward, as part of our IDF investments, we will be targeting support for early-stage companies with a particular focus on women-led startups," Sanjay Gupta, Country Manager & VP, Google India said at the Google for India event. The company announced several projects powered by artificial intelligence, including speech technology, voice and video search etc.

"With AI, text content can convert to video in an instant…Translations from English to virtually any language are possible at scale. AI can bring quantum leaps in online safety through advanced threat detection," Gupta said. 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 also announced a grant of $1 million to set up India's first responsible AI centre at IIT Madras.

Also Read: YouTube's creator ecosystem contributed over Rs 10,000 crore to India’s GDP in 2021: Report