Google Unveils Major AI Initiatives for India: Localizing Gemini and Boosting Developer Ecosystem

Google Powers India's AI Mission with Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani.ai | AIM

Google is also working with startups, including CoRover, Glance, Entri, InVideo, Nykaa, Dashverse, and Toonsutra. Google has firmly placed its bet on India. It is stepping in to help the Indian startups develop their own foundational models. At Google I/O India 2025, Manish Gupta, senior director at Google Deepmind, announced that three startups, Sarvam, Soket AI, and Gnani.ai, are building local solutions on top of Gemma family of models. In addition to startups, Google is collaborating with BharatGen at IIT Bombay to develop Indic language Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) models. These efforts focus on making AI more useful in the Indic context, particularly for underrepresented languages and public sector use cases. The company said the Gemma 3 series, including the lightweight Gemma 3n variant, is now available for Indian developers with applications ranging from healthcare to speech translation. "Gemma 3n is designed to enable developers to create multimodal AI experiences that are fast, private and available even offline," Google said in its blog post. The company added that the model is capable of running on phones and tablets with as little as 2 GB of RAM, making it suitable for a wide range of devices in India. Google is working directly with Sarvam AI, which has developed a long-form text translation model using Gemma called Sarvam-Translate. It is an open-weight translation model fine-tuned on Gemma3-4B-IT, supporting 22 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Assamese, and Manipuri. Unlike generic multilingual models, Sarvam-Translate is optimised for long-form translation across formats such as LaTeX documents, HTML web pages, and OCR-processed files, maintaining structural and syntactic integrity. "With the help of Gemma, this new model is able to translate long-form and structured documents while preserving context, coherence, and cultural nuance," the tech giant said in the blog post. Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam AI, on the sidelines of the Google I/O event, told AIM that the company will continue using open-source models available in the market and adapt them for the Indian context. Notably, he added that Sarvam AI is on track to release a model built from scratch under the IndiaAI mission tentatively later this year. Engineers at Sarvam AI said they plan to surpass the quality of Indic voice models currently offered by its competitors. Soket AI founder Abhishek Upperwal told AIM that the company has partnered with Google to build a domain-specific agriculture model as part of the IndiaAI mission. The collaboration aims to address on-ground agricultural challenges by leveraging high-quality data and open-source AI models. "Google will be supporting us in terms of curating the dataset, figuring out domain-specific aspects around it," said Upperwal. To support this effort, Google is providing compute credits through its startup program and has also committed to financial support. While the exact amount of funding has not been disclosed, Soket AI confirmed that the resources will be used to ensure data quality and model reliability. Besides the startups selected under the IndiaAI Mission, Google is also working with others, including CoRover, Glance, Entri, InVideo, Nykaa, Dashverse, and Toonsutra. The tech giant reiterated its support for India's AI startup ecosystem through programmes like the Google for Startups Accelerator (GFSA), which has supported over 230 Indian startups. The company is expanding its collaboration with the MeitY Startup Hub, launching initiatives such as the 'Agentic AI Roadshows & Masterclass and the GenAI Startup Buildathon' in partnership with Nasscom. Omar Sanseviero, staff AI developer relations engineer at Google DeepMind, announced that the Gemma models have surpassed 180 million downloads. "Thanks to a vibrant community that has created over 80,000 variants based on Gemma. We love how you have embraced Gemma's multimodality and long context, applying it in powerful ways," he said. Sanseviero further added that Google has launched multiple Gemma variants, including Shield Gemma for safe LLM deployment, MedGemma for healthcare applications, Dolphin Gemma for marine research, and Gemma 3n for efficient on-device AI. Besides, Google also announced that it has made its powerful Gemini 2.5 Flash model available in Indian data centres. Gemini 2.5 Flash processing is now available in India through Single Zone Provisioned Throughput in Google Cloud regions. "This will especially help developers build for regulated industries like healthcare, banking and finance, and for the public sector, where data residency and low-latency processing are critical," said Sanseviero.

Google Brings On-Shore Processing for Gemini 2.5 Flash to India

Google is expanding grounding with Google Maps in the country Google announced a series of advanced AI and geospatial tools for developers in India during its I/O Connect event on Wednesday. The tech giant is bringing the Gemini 2.5 Flash processing to India. This generative AI model will now be accessible via India-based data centres. Google is also expanding grounding with Google Maps in the country through Vertex AI. The company is also rolling out the AI-powered summaries in the Places API to India. Additionally, Google has added new India-specific pricing for its Maps Places UI Kit. At the I/O Connect event in Bengaluru, Google announced the rollout of Gemini 2.5 Flash processing in the country. As mentioned, this generative AI model will now be accessible via Single Zone Provisioned Throughput within Indian Google Cloud regions. Google states that it will be beneficial for healthcare, finance, and the public sector industries. To enable more accurate and location-aware responses from large language models (LLMs) in Vertex AI, Google is deepening integration with Google Maps in the country. This upgrade will let developers working on logistics, travel, and location-based services access more detailed and locally relevant data about over 250 million places worldwide. Google has also introduced AI-powered summaries in the Places API to India. This integration will allow Indian developers to embed concise, Gemini-powered overviews of real-world locations into their applications. Google states that this will allow users to save time and resonate with local needs. The company has made available the Google Maps Places UI Kit with India-specific pricing. This would make it affordable for more developers in the country to build engaging and location-based features using Google Maps Places. Finally, Google's Advanced AI Weather Forecasting models will now support the new Google Maps Weather API in the country. This enables developers to deliver accurate, hyperlocal weather predictions. This feature is expected to be useful for developers working with logistics, e-commerce, and mobility platforms.

These Indian Startups Used Google's AI Models for Their Applications

Webcomics application Toonsutra is leveraging Gemini 2.5 Pro and Lyria 2 Google hosted its I/O Connect India 2025 event in Bengaluru on Wednesday, unveiling new AI-powered tools and programmes tailored for the Indian developer ecosystem. Eight domestic startups showcased applications made using Google's new AI models during the event. Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam has leveraged Google's Gemma 3 model for its latest translation tool. Similarly, startups including CoRover, Dashverse, Entri, Glance, Invideo, Nykaa, and Toonsutra have used Google's Gemini to power their new features. At Google I/O Connect India 2025, eight Indian startups showcased innovations built using Google's AI models: CoRover, Dashverse, Entri, Glance, Invideo, Nykaa Sarvam, Toonsutra. Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam has used Gemma 3 to develop Sarvam-Translate, its newly launched open-source translation model. This model is designed to deliver translations for long-form content across all 22 Indian languages. Offered as a hosted translation API, Google claims that it processes over 1,00,000 translation requests each week. The API also powers Samvaad, Sarvam's multilingual conversational AI platform. Another AI firm, CoRover, leveraged Google's Gemini model to create customisable, multilingual customer chatbots for businesses. According to Google, CoRover's BharatGPT AI model has served more than 1 billion users, over 25,000 enterprises and developers, and handled over 20 billion interactions. It used Gemini through the Google Cloud AI Stack. Glance says it used Gemini and Imagen through Vertex AI to create a personalised experience for users. It allows users to upload selfies through smartphones to generate different looks styled on their own image based on their preferences. Edtech platform Entri has integrated Gemini into its AI-powered Teacher Assistant and Interview Coach tools. This provides users with real-time support in Indian languages. Google states that over 53 percent of users accessed the Teacher Assistant, while 91 percent have tried the Interview Coach. At Google I/O Connect India 2025, Google also revealed that Invideo is transforming video creation by using Gemini models like Imagen 4 and Veo 3. With this, the company lets anyone turn text prompts into full-length videos. Using Google's AI stack, Invideo handles the technical side. Retail firm Nykaa uses Gemini via Chrome's multimodal API to enable visual product search on its fashion site. This lets users snap a photo to find matching and suggested items from the catalogue. Other Indian startups joining Google's AI models are Dashverse and Toonsutra. Dashverse used Gemini, Veo 3, and Lyria 2 on Vertex AI to power its AI platforms, Dashtoon Studio and Frameo. These AI platforms can transform text prompts into comics and cinematic videos. These tools drive its apps, Dashtoon and Dashreels, which are claimed to be serving over 2 million users. Webcomics application Toonsutra is leveraging Gemini 2.5 Pro and Lyria 2 for creating Indian-language webcomics with music and character voices. It uses Veo 3's image-to-video feature to bring comic visuals. Additionally, Google announced the second cohort of its Google for Startups Accelerator: Apps programme, featuring 20 AI-driven Indian startups. The company claimed that over the past decade, Google's accelerator programmes have supported more than 230 startups in India.

AI at the Core: Google I/O Connect India 2025 backs developers driving the nation's tech ambitions

At Google I/O Connect India 2025, held in Bengaluru earlier today, the tech giant outlined a series of updates aimed at bolstering the country's developer and startup ecosystem, with a strong emphasis on AI-led innovation. The announcements included plans to localize data processing for its lightweight Gemini 2.5 Flash model, new Agentic AI tools integrated into Firebase Studio, and a training initiative in collaboration with game engine developer Unity. Google also shared details of its ongoing work with three startups under India's AI Mission to help build homegrown AI solutions aligned with the government's Make-in-India goals. In addition to the product and partnership updates, Google cited third-party estimates suggesting that the Android and Google Play ecosystem contributed ₹4 lakh crore to India's app economy in 2024, while supporting approximately 35 lakh jobs across direct, indirect, and ancillary roles. At Google I/O Connect India 2025, the company outlined a number of steps aimed at grounding its AI capabilities more deeply in the Indian context. Chief among these was the announcement of Gemini 2.5 Flash processing being made locally available a move geared toward providing Indian developers with faster, more stable access to AI tools, particularly in regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and public services where data residency and latency are critical. India's push for homegrown AI also found alignment in Google's support for startups selected under the India AI Mission. Sarvam, Soket AI, and Gnani are working with Google's Gemma models to develop next-gen AI tools made in India. Sarvam, in particular, has released Sarvam-Translate, a long-form translation model built using Gemma, aimed at breaking language barriers at scale. Google is also collaborating with BharatGen at IIT Bombay to build automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech models in Indic languages an initiative aimed at enhancing AI accessibility for historically underrepresented communities and improving governance tools. In recognition of India's mobile commerce surge, Google also rolled out several developer-focused updates. It announced broader access to its global Maps database including over 250 million locations alongside India-specific pricing for its Maps Places UI Kit, designed to help developers integrate rich, location-based features at lower costs. The AI-powered summaries in the Places API have also been extended to India, allowing for more dynamic and user-relevant app experiences. Firebase Studio Google's recently introduced cloud-based AI development suite is getting a suite of updates aimed at making full-stack app development more intuitive. New features include optimized templates for popular frameworks, workspace forking, and direct deployment to Firebase Hosting. The updates are intended to streamline the app-building process, especially for developers looking to move fast without upfront infrastructure costs. India is now home to the second-largest base of active developers on Google Play, with over 10 lakh developer jobs estimated in 2024 alone. Android has played a foundational role in the country's digital transformation, with data indicating that 72% of surveyed users accessed the internet for the first time on an Android device. For many, it remains a primary gateway to digital public services and AI experiences. The open nature of Android has also contributed to estimated savings of ₹25,200 crore in development and operating costs for device manufacturers, making smartphones more affordable and accessible. To further expand opportunities, Google launched the Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training program. Developed in partnership with Unity and the Game Developer Association of India (GDAI), this free certification course offers over 30 hours of training across game development tracks. The program is currently being piloted with 500 developers in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, with broader rollout planned. Additionally, Google's Gen AI Exchange Hackathon aims to foster real-world innovation by inviting developers to apply their AI expertise to new problem-solving use cases. The event brought together around 1,800 developers for a day of live demos, technical sessions, and product walkthroughs. Notably, eight Indian startups including Sarvam, InVideo, Nykaa, and Glance demonstrated how they are integrating Google's AI tools to solve for scale, access, and user experience across different sectors.

Google unveils major AI initiatives for India, localising Gemini and boosting developer ecosystem - The Economic Times

During the event, the key announcement was the localisation of onshore processing for Gemini 2.5 Flash, bringing faster, low-latency AI performance for Indian developers, especially in regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance, and governance.Google unveiled a range of initiatives aimed at propelling India's AI capabilities and empowering developers at Google I/O Connect India 2025 in Bengaluru on Wednesday. During the event, the key announcement was the localisation of onshore processing for Gemini 2.5 Flash, bringing faster, low-latency AI performance for Indian developers, especially in regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance, and governance. "Indian developers are literally writing the next chapter of India's success story, using AI capabilities to build real-world applications that are reaching millions of businesses and people across India and the world," said Manish Gupta, Senior Director for India and APAC at Google DeepMind. The company also emphasised its commitment to India's developer ecosystem, revealing that the Play and Android platforms contributed Rs 4 lakh crore in revenue and generated 35 lakh jobs in 2024. Google also introduced agentic AI tools and optimised templates in Firebase Studio, enabling developers to build and deploy full-stack AI apps with greater speed and efficiency. In a significant move for mobile commerce, Google announced expanded access to over 250 million mapped places globally and launched India-specific pricing for Google Maps UI components. AI-powered summaries in the Places API will help developers create location-based services tailored to Indian users. Furthering India's AI ambition, Google is collaborating with three India AI Mission startups--Sarvam, Soket AI, and Gnani--on Make-in-India AI models based on Gemma. Sarvam's recent "Sarvam-Translate" model exemplifies this innovation. In partnership with IIT Bombay's BharatGen, Google is also advancing ASR and TTS models for Indic languages. To support India's vast game development community, Google launched the 'Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training' program, in collaboration with Unity and GDAI. Targeted at 500 Indian developers initially, the program offers over 30 hours of specialised training across game development roles. Highlighting innovation, the Gen AI Exchange Hackathon encourages developers to apply AI skills to real-world challenges. During the event, startups such as Sarvam, InVideo, Glance, and Nykaa showcased impactful solutions built using Google's AI models.

Google Gemini Surpasses 450 Million Monthly Active Users; Expands AI Push in India

Google's Gemini application has surpassed the 450 million monthly active users mark, and daily usage has surged by more than 50 percent compared to the previous quarter, according to Shekar Khosla, Vice President - Marketing and Site Lead at Google India. In a LinkedIn post on Friday, Khosla noted the growing momentum behind the Gemini app. "The numbers say it all! @GeminiApp momentum is growing," he wrote, highlighting the rapid adoption of the platform. Also Read: Google Announces AI Collaborations for Healthcare, Sustainability, and Agriculture in India The announcement comes as Google begins offering complimentary access to its premium AI subscription -- Google AI Pro -- to college students in India. Typically priced at Rs 19,500 annually, the plan is now available at no cost to students aged 18 and above until September 15, 2025. "I'm pleased to share that today we are taking a significant step forward in our commitment to empowering students in India. We're offering students (aged 18+) in India a free one-year subscription to a Google AI Pro plan - our most capable AI model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and a suite of advanced tools such as Veo 3 and Deep Research in the Gemini app. This isn't just about homework help. It's about: We're excited to put the power of our best AI tools directly into the hands of the students who will build tomorrow and unlock their potential." Khosla shared in another recent LinkedIn post. "Get unlimited homework help, revise for exams and perfect your writing with our best AI model. With Google AI Pro, your free upgrade includes access to Veo 3 Fast, Deep Research, NotebookLM and 2 TB free storage," Google announced on its Gemini for Students page, promoting the one-year "Free for Students" upgrade program. Also Read: Bharti Airtel Offers Free Perplexity Pro AI Subscription to All Customers Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel has also announced a partnership with Perplexity, an AI-powered search and answer engine, to offer a complimentary 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro -- worth Rs 17,000 -- to all its 360 million customers across mobile, broadband, and DTH services. The Gemini app was officially launched in India in June 2025. Both the basic and advanced versions of the app, which provide access to Google's latest AI models, are now available in nine Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Android users can access Gemini via the standalone app, Google Assistant, or through select gestures and voice commands on compatible devices. Also Read: Airtel and Google Partner to Offer Google One Subscription to Postpaid and Wi-Fi Users In a broader push to strengthen India's AI ecosystem, Google unveiled several initiatives at its Google I/O Connect India 2025 event held in Bengaluru. A key announcement was the localisation of onshore processing for Gemini 2.5 Flash, aimed at delivering low-latency AI performance for Indian developers, particularly in regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance, and governance. Additionally, Google announced partnerships with three startups -- Sarvam, Soket AI, and Gnani -- under the India AI Mission to develop indigenous AI models based on its open-source Gemma architecture. Sarvam's recently released Sarvam-Translate model was cited as a notable example of this collaboration. Furthering its commitment to language inclusion, Google is also working with IIT Bombay's BharatGen to enhance automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies for Indic languages, according to multiple media reports. Also Read: OpenAI and IndiaAI Mission Partner to Launch OpenAI Academy in India Google has introduced new open-source AI innovations and initiatives aimed at strengthening India's agriculture sector and making AI models more responsive to the country's linguistic and cultural diversity. "Our AI research is helping the ecosystem strengthen Indian agriculture, and is bringing the country's linguistic and cultural diversity to global models," the company said. In a July 10 statement, Google announced the launch of the Agricultural Monitoring and Event Detection (AMED) API, which builds upon the Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API. The AMED API offers field-level crop data to support monitoring crops and detecting agricultural events at individual fields across India. "The AMED API details the type of crop on a given field, crop season, the field's size, and also provides historical information about the agricultural activity on it for the last three years. These insights can help significantly strengthen agricultural management on farms, contributing to addressing the specific needs of each crop - including the right soil and water conditions, growing habits, and climatic needs - as well as predicting harvest volume. And as the data is refreshed nearly every two weeks, partners leveraging the AMED API are able to access continuously updated information that accounts for field-level changes and agricultural events," the Google India team shared in a blog post. Google noted that innovators have already used the ALU API for unique solutions. "TerraStack, incubated at IIT-Bombay, has built a rural land intelligence system that can support rural lending, land record modernization, and help determine vulnerability of farms to climate risk. The system uses the ALU API to identify farm boundaries and detect potential encroachment and changes in land ownership, which is a crucial factor in the support farmers avail from both the public and private sector." The AMED API was developed by Google DeepMind in collaboration with the Google Partnerships Innovation team. TerraStack is currently exploring AMED API use cases for rural lending. "We look forward to seeing the many ways India's developer ecosystem builds solutions that deeply support India's farmers, helping uplift the country's agricultural productivity," Google added. Also Read: India Developing Indigenous AI-Native Telecom Technologies Google also announced a collaboration with researchers at IIT Kharagpur to bring its Amplify Initiative to India. The program aims to provide the global language developer ecosystem with free, structured, hyperlocal, and high-quality datasets on India's linguistic and cultural diversity. "This initiative aims to bridge knowledge gaps within Large Language Models with localized data - including different languages, dialects, and cultural nuances missing from current AI training - enabling models to better serve people in meaningful and relatable ways," the blog post added. As part of the Amplify Initiative in India, Google said its local partner will begin building datasets related to specific issues, including in healthcare and safety, in multiple Indic languages. Google also highlighted how Indian startups are leveraging its AI capabilities. For instance, Sarvam AI is using the Gemma model family to contribute to India's sovereign AI ambition. "Cropin has leveraged Gemini to build the world's first real-time agri-intelligence solution, Cropin Sage, which has already helped a leading US-based agri-processing company, among others, to de-risk and future-proof its supply chain against potential climate-related shocks. Manipal Hospital has built an assistive system with Gemini that has reduced the time nurses take to hand over patients between shifts by more than half, enabling them to instead focus more on patient care." "As we look ahead, we remain deeply committed to this collaborative journey, and charting new frontiers that help build an AI-powered future that is truly more inclusive, innovative, and prosperous for all of India," Google concluded.

Google Announces New AI Capabilities to Empower Indian Developers and Startups at I/O Connect India

At Google I/O Connect India 2025 held in Bengaluru, Google announced new initiatives and AI capabilities to support the Indian developer and startup ecosystem in leading India's AI-powered ambition. Google's announcements emphasized the company's lasting commitment to Indian developers' success, and include localizing data processing of its high-performance thinking model Gemini 2.5 Flash, new Agentic AI tools in Firebase Studio, a new training program with one of the world's leading gaming engine platform - Unity, and collaborations with 3 India AI Mission startups in building innovative solutions toward the development of India's Make-in-India AI models.