Pichai: Google plans new US-India subsea cable initiative to boost AI link

New Delhi: Google Wednesday announced the "America-India Connect" initiative that will see it set up a subsea cable link connecting the country with the US, building upon its plan to invest $15 billion in a data centre and strengthening the technical ties between the world's largest search engine giant and the country with the most internet users.

"AI is the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said at a media briefing, calling it "one of the most powerful tools to solve problems and improve lives at planetary scale". Pichai announced the plan after meeting PM Modi on Wednesday afternoon.




At the heart of that bet is infrastructure. Pichai reiterated Google's previously announced $15 billion AI hub in Visakhapatnam, which will house gigawatt-scale compute capacity and a new international subsea cable gateway.

"It's an extraordinary moment; we are investing to meet the moment," said Pichai, who is among top global tech chiefs in the capital for the AI Impact Summit.

India's talent pipeline ecosystem already thriving, says Google CEO

Google is among the world's largest private investors in subsea fibre-optic cable networks. The new link connects India and the US with the Southern Hemisphere. Partnering with specialist companies, it typically finances, designs and initiates these projects, which span thousands of kilometres under the sea and carry high-capacity global data traffic.

The strategy reflects Google's view that India is uniquely positioned in the AI era. Pichai said he sees "a chance to play a big role in all three" -- as a user, builder and rule-shaper of AI systems.

He described India as a "full stack" AI opportunity. That means investing in research institutions, infrastructure and diffusion across sectors so that AI touches daily life. "The progress is about diffusing the technology," he said, adding that it must reach farmers, students and doctors.

In this context, diffusion means how widely and deeply Artificial Intelligence spreads across the economy and society, beyond labs, pilot projects and large corporations.

The company also announced a $30-million effort from its philanthropic arm, Google.org, to improve public services with AI, along with another $30 million to support researchers using AI for scientific breakthroughs.

On corporate hesitation around AI spending, Pichai drew a historical parallel. Investments today, he said, resemble railroad and national highway projects, capital intensive but transformative. "We are investing to meet that moment," he said. Cloud backlog alone doubled year-on-year to $240 billion, underscoring technological demand.

For India's talent pipeline, Google's CEO was clear. The ecosystem is already thriving. "I just don't see any impediments," he added.