Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the CEOs of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft during his three-day visit to the USA to meet with President Joe Biden. He met with other business and political leaders as well. Modi also met with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, earlier this week.
Meeting minutes
The tech giant executives spent more than an hour with Modi on Friday inside the White House. They discussed the challenges as well as the opportunities for investing in India.
Modi said, “The governments of India and the US have done the groundwork for you… Now you have the responsibility to play and prosper on this ground. The one who plays will prosper…. For you, it is the time to take the first and fast mover advantage,” addressing the business leaders.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said to CNBC that India presents a “huge opportunity”. He also reminded them of the two retail stores that Apple opened earlier this year when asked about his plans to continue expanding in India.
The White House informed after the meeting on Friday that Google shall be working with the IIS (Indian Institute of Science) on open-sourcing of speech data for AI models.
PM Modi said, “AI is the future, be it Artificial Intelligence or America-India! Our nations are stronger together, our planet is better when we work in collaboration.”
Hemant Taneja’s opinion
CEO of General Catalyst, Hemant Taneja, also attended the meeting. He said, “The U.S. and India need each other in technology.” He further mentioned in his email to DealBook, “The U.S. has to recognize the strength and needs of India’s economy and build a feedback cycle that avoids the digital cold war we currently find ourselves in with China. This is all the more pressing in the midst of the global debate over A.I. and the need to adopt basic guardrails worldwide so the future of the technology is not dictated by nefarious actors.”
Investments and challenges for employment
Even large semiconductor corporations like Applied Materials and Micron took the opportunity of Modi’s visit to announce plans to invest significantly in India. Micron is considering opening a facility in Gujarat, Modi’s home state. The chip industry is always looking for prospects to expand its supply chain.
Lam Research on the other hand has plans to train 60000 engineers in India. However, for American companies, it has always been a challenge to employ people in India due to outdated labor laws and access to highly skilled labor.
A former U.S. Ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster said, “U.S. companies in India have had difficulties over time with regulatory uncertainty as well as challenges in relocating or terminating employees.” However, he remains optimistic since India pledged to ease the process of trade and commerce for foreign entities. Juster is presently holding the position of a distinguished fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations.
Modi’s tweet
After the meeting, Modi tweeted, “At the White House today, @POTUS @JoeBiden and I met top CEOs associated with tech and innovation to explore ways in which technology can fuel India-USA relations. Harnessing tech for societal betterment is a common goal that binds us, promising a brighter future for our people.”
Pichai said
Google CEO, Sundar Pichai told PTI, “I met the prime minister in December, and we continued our conversation. We shared that Google is investing USD 10 billion in the India digitisation fund and we are continuing to invest through that, including in companies working on artificial intelligence. As part of that, we have a 100-language initiative. We are bringing bot to more Indian languages very soon.”
In attendance
Antony Blinken (US Secretary of State), Mukesh Aghi (US-India Strategic Partnership Forum President and CEO), Chairman Emeritus at Cisco, and John Chambers (founder of JC2 Ventures) also addressed the event. Other renowned personalities present at the event include Sunita Williams (NASA astronaut), Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Mukesh Ambani (chairman of Reliance Industries), and Anand Mahindra (chairman of Mahindra Group).
US organizations have invested more than 160 billion USD in India in the last two and a half years which is huge in itself. “India is the world’s youngest nation and it has the world’s biggest youth talent pool and skilled and professional force,” Modi told PTI. He believes that any country that joins hands with India shall be benefitted.
