Google to invest $1 billion to push India’s digitalization

NEW DELHI (AP) — Google plans to invest up to $1 billion in partnership with India’s Airtel for providing affordable access to smartphones to over a billion Indians and accelerating the cloud ecosystem for businesses. The two companies said on Friday the investment will especially help India’s small businesses adopt digital tools that can accelerate their transformation with the COVID-19 pandemic lending an urgency in education, payments and retail sectors.  As part of the “Google for India Digitization Fund” launched in 2020, the deal includes an investment of $700 million to acquire 1.28% ownership in Airtel and up to $300 million toward commercial agreements over the next five years.