Google For India 2024: Adani Clean Energy Tie-Up, New Security Center, AI Updates And More

Google, at the 10th edition of its annual flagship event 'Google for India', announced AI updates, partnerships with Adani and CleanMax for green energy and a new security engineering center for the country, among more.

A Google-commissioned report also estimated that at least Rs 33.8 lakh crore of economic value from AI adoption can be achieved in India in 2030.

Gemini Live

Google's Gemini, its most capable AI model and assistant, will now be available in the form of Gemini Live, a conversational voicebot. It will now be made available in Hindi and eight other Indian languages.

AI-powered overviews, which provide summaries of Google searches, will also be rolled out in Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil in the coming weeks. It is already available in English and Hindi.

Google Maps is also introducing two new weather-related alerts in India: low visibility areas due to fog and flooded roads, which will be user-powered.

For businesses, Google launched new AI tools in its Product Studio to help merchants showcase products more creatively to shoppers. For restaurants, Google will now help convert menu photos into formatted online menus and linking social accounts through their Google Business Profile for showcasing deals from popular aggregators like Zomato Ltd., Swiggy Ltd., EazyDiner Pvt., and Magicpin. 

Through the Google Merchant Center, businesses can now also offer chat options via SMS or WhatsApp. "India is one of the first markets where this will roll out with a select set of merchants, and will expand to all businesses in the coming months," it said in a statement.

Google Pay

Google Pay has expanded its personal loan offerings on Thursday, via the onboarding of Aditya Birla Finance Ltd. as a partner. It is also venturing into providing gold-backed secured loans in collaboration with Muthoot Finance Ltd.

Google Pay will also now feature a Gemini-powered support guide, which can answer queries related to credit products.

New Security Engineering Center For India

Google also announced the launch of a Safety Engineering Center in India in 2025, which will build online safety products.

The tech giant already has such centers in Ireland's Dublin, Germany's Munich and Spain's Malaga.

The Indian GSEC will be set up with safety engineers, local policy experts, government partners, and academia.

Google Health

Google announced a collaboration with the Government of India's Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission that is being implemented by the National Health Authority.

Developers looking to integrate their tools with the ABDM digital architecture will see time taken potentially reducing from up to six months to less than two weeks.

Also, starting next year, ABHA health ID cards, which enable people to store, share and receive digital health information, will be accessible on Google Wallet in partnership with Eka Care.

DPI-In-A-Box

In partnership with Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, Google is also creating something called a 'DPI in a box'—a plug-and-play model based on open network, identity, digital credentials, and other digital public goods.

This is to further help with India's aim of exporting its digital public infrastructure, such as Aadhaar, DigiLocker and CoWin, to other nations.

Google's Clean Energy

Google announced two partnerships with Adani Group and CleanMax as part of its sustainability goals.

These are expected to add 186 MW of new clean energy generation capacity to the Indian grid by 2026.

"The first collaboration with Adani Group will involve procuring bundled energy solutions to advance decarbonisation of Google's cloud services in India. This includes clean energy supply from a 61.4 MW solar-wind hybrid plant to be developed in Khavda, Gujarat, and expected to start commercial operations in 2025," it said.

The collaboration with CleanMax enables a portfolio of 125.4MW of new clean energy projects, consisting of 66 MW solar in Rajasthan and 59.4 MW wind in Karnataka.

"These projects are expected to start commercial operations in 2025 and will deliver carbon free energy to the grid where Google operates offices and cloud regions in India," it added.

Spam Protection

Google is also soon piloting enhanced fraud protection within Google Play Protect in India. "This feature will analyse and automatically block the installation of apps from internet-sideloaded sources, such as a web browser, messaging app or file manager, that request sensitive permissions," it said.

In financial scams, fraudsters abuse permissions like access to SMS, notifications to steal one-time passwords, financial credentials, and other sensitive data.

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