AI push in India: Google tackles language and farming challenges

Google is intensifying its AI initiatives in India, with a focus on addressing language barriers and improving agricultural efficiency. Abhishek Bapna, Director of Product Management at Google DeepMind, emphasized the economic importance of breaking language barriers, particularly in areas like healthcare and banking. Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, supports over 40 languages globally, including nine Indian languages, and aims to enhance language quality further.

In collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science, Google’s Project Vaani provides over 14,000 hours of speech data from 80 districts, empowering developers to create more efficient AI models for India’s multilingual environment. Additionally, the IndicGenBench benchmark helps fine-tune language models for Indian languages. These efforts are crucial to improving the accuracy and reach of AI in the country.

Google is also piloting its Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API in Telangana, designed to boost farm yields and enhance market access. The initiative aligns with Google’s broader goals of improving livelihoods and addressing climate change, offering granular data-driven insights at the farm field level.

These initiatives are expected to not only assist farmers but also attract end users like banks and insurance companies. Once the pilot program is completed, Google plans to scale the project to work with state governments across India.