Google Commits $8 Million to India’s AI Centres of Excellence, Backs Health, Language and Clean Energy Initiatives

Google on Monday announced a series of funding commitments and partnerships to support India’s AI ecosystem, including $8 million for four government-backed AI Centres of Excellence and fresh investments across healthcare, Indic languages and renewable energy, at its “Lab to Impact” dialogue in New Delhi.

The company said the funding aligns with India’s push to position artificial intelligence as a national capability, with support spanning research, Digital Public Infrastructure and startup development. 

The event was attended by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.“India is approaching artificial intelligence as a strategic national capability, not as a short-term technology trend,” Pradhan said, adding that the Centres of Excellence are intended to advance research and applied solutions that serve public purpose.

The four AI Centres of Excellence supported by Google.org are based at IISc Bengaluru, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras and IIT Ropar, focusing on healthcare, urban governance, education and agriculture. Google is also making a $2 million founding contribution to set up an Indic Language Technologies Research Hub at IIT Bombay.

In healthcare, Google announced $400,000 to support the development of India’s Health Foundation Models using its MedGemma technology. As part of this effort, Ajna Lens will work with AIIMS experts on dermatology and outpatient triaging use cases, while IISc researchers will explore broader clinical applications. Google is also working with the National Health Authority to convert unstructured medical records into machine-readable formats and to list over 400,000 registered health facilities on Google Maps and Search.

“From foundational research to ecosystem deployment to scaled impact, our full-stack approach is equipping the country to lead a global AI-powered future,” said Manish Gupta, senior research director at Google DeepMind.

To support developers and startups, Google announced $50,000 grants each for Gnani.AI, CoRover.AI and BharatGen, and said it has uploaded all 22 of its open Gemma models to the government’s AIKosh platform to enable local model development.

On sustainability, Google said it has partnered with ReNew Energy to support a new 150-MW solar project in Rajasthan, with environmental attribute certificates to be applied across its value chain emissions. The initiative builds on earlier renewable energy partnerships in India.

Google said the combined efforts are aimed at linking research, deployment and infrastructure to support India’s AI ambitions across public services and industry.

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