On Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the company continues to engage closely with partner JIO on the new initiative of building an affordable smartphone. Currently, the work is underway on the project and will soon come up with the new smartphone.
In 2020, Google had purchased a 7.7 percent stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 33,737 crores. It had also entered into a commercial agreement with Jio platforms to develop an entity-level, affordable smartphone for all.
But other than this no further details or launch date, pricing revealed.
The main reason behind this is the availability of affordable devices along with cheap data rates and other services that can help bring the internet within reach for more people across the nation and let them use and connect with the world seamlessly.
Google decided to invest in Jio platforms as a part of the India digitization fund that was announced in 2020.
Moreover in July 2020 chief executive officer of Google stated that it is planning to invest 75 thousand crores that are around 10 billion US dollars in India over the next five to seven years. This is to help raise the adoption of digital technologies and widen the reach to a more customer base.
On Thursday he said that “Google is also looking at new opportunities to deploy funds from its 10 billion dollars India digitization fund and will make some announcements later this year”.
When asked about the impact of covid on upcoming projects he said that with the ongoing pandemic the importance of Technology highlighted and it majorly plays a significant role in all of our lives.
Earlier this month the company announced a slew of new features which involves new privacy settings, artificial intelligence tools, and the release of the first beta of Android 12 that will soon become part of its products.
The company is planning to be more transparent by sharing and publishing research and highlighting the AI principles among other solutions and ways.
He further stated that- “Over time, we’ll have to figure out responsible AI regulations, which promotes innovation but balances it with responsible oversight…We should never lose sight of the benefits AI is going to bring, just like technology has always brought tremendous benefits and work hard to address the downsides and mitigate it, I think that’s a construct all of us have to do globally”.
In this project, Google intends to be a responsible partner and thought leader.
The company also stated that they are investing in privacy preservation to improve practice across the industry.
Lastly, he said we just need to give users tools and controls choices and newer techniques by which we preserve their privacy more securely.
