Google Announces $17M+ AI, Health, Clean Energy Deals

• Google commits $17M+ for AI CoEs ($8M), Indic Hub ($2M), health models.
• $4.5M to Wadhwani AI for HealthVaani/Garuda; NHA FHIR conversion.
• Clean energy: 150 MW solar with ReNew; Gemma models on AIKosh.

Google​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ has devoted over $17 million through funding and partnerships in areas such as AI, health, agriculture, education, language technologies, and clean energy in India, which was the major point at the 'Lab to Impact' dialogue in New Delhi. Major announcements include $8 million by Google.org to the four AI Centres of Excellence established by the government: TANUH at IISc Bengaluru (health/non-communicable diseases), Airawat Research Foundation at IIT Kanpur (urban governance), IIT Madras (education AI), and ANNAM.AI at IIT Ropar (agriculture/farmer welfare).

The other initiatives include $2 million as a founding contribution to the Indic Language Technologies Research Hub of IIT Bombay in the memory of Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya; $400,000 for India-specific Health Foundation Models through MedGemma, where Ajna Lens is partnering AIIMS for dermatology/triaging and IISc for clinical applications; and working with the National Health Authority (NHA) to convert unstructured medical records to FHIR format and list more than 400,000 NHA facilities on Google Maps/Search.

Also Read: Microsoft to Invest $17.5 Billion in India, Says Nadella

Google.org has given Wadhwani AI $4.5 million, out of which $2.5 million is for a multilingual HealthVaani (AI assistant for ASHA/Anganwadi workers) and $2 million for Garuda (Indic LLM for agriculture powering AgriVaani). Two startups, Gnani.AI and CoRover.AI, received grants of $50,000 each, plus $50,000 was given to IIT Bombay for an India-centric trait database. All 22 Gemma models were made available at AIKosh (India AI Mission platform).

On clean energy, Google has linked up with ReNew Energy on a 150 MW solar project in Rajasthan and is the recipient of environmental certificates. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan termed AI as “strategic national capability,” and Google’s Manish Gupta, on the other hand, highlighted India’s full-stack AI ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌leadership.