Google to invest $1 billion to push India's digitalization
ABC News
Google plans to invest up to $1 billion in partnership with India’s Airtel for providing affordable access to smartphones to over a billion Indians and accelerating the cloud ecosystem for businesses
NEW DELHI -- Google will invest up to $1 billion in partnership with India’s Airtel to provide affordable access to smartphones to over a billion Indians and speed up use of cloud-based computing for business, the two companies said on Friday.
The investment will help India’s small businesses adopt digital tools as India works to adopt digital education, payments and e-commerce amid the pandemic, Google said in a blog post.
As part of the ``Google for India Digitization Fund” launched in 2020, Google will pay $700 million to acquire a 1.28% stake in Airtel. It is also committing up to $300 million for commercial agreements over the next five years, Airtel said in a statement.
The companies also plan to jointly develop software for 5G and other standards, it said.
