Artificial intelligence shows that nothing is impossible when humanity dreams big, and it represents the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said while addressing the Global India AI summit on Thursday.
He then highlighted India’s growing role in the AI ecosystem at the global level, calling Visakhapatnam a global AI hub — the city where Google has made a major investment, transforming it into a major centre for artificial intelligence as part of the company’s long-term investment in India.
"Through Visakhapatnam, Vizag. I remember it being a quiet and modest coastal city brimming with potential. Now in that same city, Google is establishing a full-stack AI hub, part of our USD 15 billion infrastructure investment in India. When finished, this hub will house gigawatt-scale compute and a new international subsea cable gateway, bringing jobs and cutting-edge AI to people and businesses across India. Sitting on the train, I never imagined Vizag becoming a global AI hub," he said.
"The product shows what's possible when humanity dreams big, and no technology has me dreaming bigger than AI. It is the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes. We are on the cusp of hyper-progress and new discoveries that can help emerging economies leapfrog legacy gaps. But that outcome is neither guaranteed nor automatic," he said.
Explaining the reasons for optimism around AI, Pichai pointed to its role in advancing scientific discovery and improving lives globally, saying, "Because AI can improve billions of lives and solve some of the hardest problems in science. For 50 years, predicting protein structures was a grand challenge and a blind spot that stalled drug discovery. Demis Hassabis and his team at Google DeepMind asked an audacious question: how could we use AI to solve this? That question led to AlphaFold.”
"This breakthrough, which just won a Nobel Prize, compressed decades of research into a database that is now open to the world. Today, over 3 million researchers in more than 190 countries are using it to develop malaria vaccines, fight antibiotic resistance, and much more," he noted.
"And we are asking similarly bold questions across the scientific stack, from cataloging DNA disease markers to building AI agents that act as true partners in the scientific method. We must be equally bold in tackling problems in regions that have lacked access to technology," he added.
Pichai then stressed that AI holds the potential to drive innovation, create opportunities, and help address global challenges, while underscoring the need for responsible and inclusive development to ensure everyone gets its benefits.
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