'This is the moment,' Modi tells CEOs, as Google, Boeing, Amazon announce investment plans in India

Google LLC announced its plan to set up its global fintech operation at GIFT City in Gujarat and Amazon.com Inc stated that it would invest an additional $15 billion in India.

Boeing has announced a $100 million investment in building infrastructure and running programs for training pilots in India.

The multinational companies based in the United States announced big-ticket investments in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi told their CEOs before leaving Washington DC after a three-day state visit. “This is the moment,” the prime minister said addressing the business leaders of the two countries at an event in Kennedy Centre in the US capital. “The governments of India and the US have done the groundwork for you. Now you have the responsibility to play and proposer on this ground. The one who plays will prosper,” he added.

Several companies based in India also announced investments – totalling over $2 billion – in the US during the prime minister’s visit to Washington DC and his meetings with President Joe Biden, ranging from a solar plant in Colorado and a steel unit in Ohio to optic fibre factory in South Carolina.

Also Read | India, US working with renewed trust in areas of new and emerging technologies: PM Modi

Modi and Biden assured tech companies to remove hurdles in building robust business ties between the two nations.

The visit saw the Biden Administration assuring New Delhi of the willingness in the US to lower barriers to step up cooperation with India in advanced technologies, for both military and civilian use.

“The speed bumps are impeding technological partnership...So the prime minister and I can commit to building around them, over them, and through them,” Biden said as he and Modi addressed the business leaders at the Hi-Tech Handshake event in the White House. “You raise our ambitions, and I want you to let us know what stands in the way of our ambitions as well. Be straight with us.”

“Today we are announcing the opening of our global fintech operations centre in GIFT City, Gujarat. It will cement India's fintech leadership, thanks to UPI, and Aadhaar. We are going to build on that foundation and take it globally,” Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet Inc and Google LLC, told journalists after meeting the prime minister.

He said that he had earlier met the prime minister in December 2022. “We continued our conversation. We shared that Google is investing $ 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," said Pichai.

Modi invited Pichai to explore further avenues of collaboration in the domains of Artificial Intelligence, fintech, cybersecurity products and services as well as mobile device manufacturing in India.

They also discussed collaboration between Google and academic institutions in India to promote R&D and skill development, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The prime minister had a meeting with Andrew R Jassy, the CEO of Amazon.com Inc before leaving Washington DC for Cairo for a visit to Egypt. The e-commerce giant later announced its invest an additional $15 billion in India. The newly-announced investment will take the company’s investment across all businesses in India to $26 billion by 2030. Modi lauded Amazon’s initiative of promoting the digitisation of the MSMEs in India.

After the prime minister’s meeting with its CEO David L Calhoun, Boeing too has announced a $100 million investment in infrastructure and programs to train pilots in India. This comes just days after Air India formally placed orders for over 200 jets from the company, including 787 Dreamliners, 777Xs and 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft.

Modi and Calhoun discussed Boeing’s greater presence in the aviation sector in India, including in the domain of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul of aircraft. The prime minister also invited Boeing to invest in manufacturing in the space sector in India.

Micron Technology, a semiconductor company based in the US, earlier this week announced that it would invest up to $825 million in a new chip assembly and test facility in Gujarat.