Google's CEO Sundar Pichai Visit to India: 5 key expected announcements

By Harshita

| Updated: Monday, December 7, 2015, 16:31 [IST]

Google's new CEO Sundar Pichai is making an official visit to India this month to make some major announcements which might as well include unveiling of the next generation smartphones under Android One smartphone project.

Pichai held the helm at Google in August, as a part of the restricting that happened with the announcement of Alphabet Inc to be the new parent company. After taking the role of the CEO of internet search giant, the upcoming would be Pichai's first visit to India when he would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee. This meeting will be in progress to the initiatives discussed in September this year, when Pichai had hosted PM Modi at Google's headquarters in Mountain View.

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Google is hosting an event on December 16 when Pichai is expected to announce a slew of initiatives in India. Here is what you can expect from Sundar Pichai during his upcoming visit to India.

Google’s Wi-Fi initiative

During PM Modi's visit to Google's headquarter in September, the company made an announcement to offer free Wi-Fi services in over 400 railway stations in India. This would be done in partnership with RailTel and Google will use underlying optic fibre network of the latter. Pichai had mentioned in a blog post that "this will be ranked as the largest public Wi-Fi project in India, and among the largest in the world, by number of potential users". It is highly expected that Pichai will launch this project during this visit to India.

Much talked about Android Two:

If rumors are to be believed, Pichai will be in India also to launch the revamped version of its Android One program. Last year, the company had launched three new handsets in partnership with Micromax, Lava and Karbonn under the Android One initiative. However, the project could not do as well as expected. Now the company seems to be gearing up to announce the second phase of the project on December 16 event. "At Google, we believe that technology can change people's lives for the better. Indians are coming online at an astonishing rate with affordable smartphones. These new users have a completely fresh view on what the Internet has to offer. Please block your date for an event with Google as we outline our vision for these users," Google's invite reads.

Google Fiber:

Considering that Facebook has been aggressively promoting its Internet.org in India, we expect Google to make some announcements around Google Fiber as well. The Internet search giant's fiber would help in providing ultra high speed Internet services at a speed of 1000mbps.

Intitatives towards Made in India plans:

It is believed that Pichai's visit to India will mainly revolve around its plans for the PM Modi-driven Make in India initiative. India is an important market for most top tech companies, and Google has been focusing on new strategies for the country to enhance its growing internet user base here. We expect new announcements to be made around Google's strategies towards Made in India initiative.

Google Fi, Soli and more

Googe's CEO Pichai might as well make some announcements around the company's Soli and Fi projects in India. The company announced the Fi Project to deliver faster and easier wireless experience. For this the company plans to get in to close partnership with leading carriers, hardware makers, and our users. Soli, on the other hand, is based on an interaction sensor which uses radar technology, and could use this to bring gesture control to wearables.