From latest AI models to training of 10,000 startups, key announcements at Google I/O Connect Bengaluru

Google India has announced its latest AI models, tools, and programs for the developer community in the country at its Google I/O Connect Bengaluru 2024. The tech behemoth says over 1.5 million developers are using its Gemini models globally via Google AI Studio, and India is one of the largest developer bases.

At Google I/O Connect Bengaluru 2024 on Wednesday, Google vowed to democratise AI for Indian developers by focusing on three key AI areas -- multimodal, multilingual, and mobile.

"We’re working with MeitY Startup Hub to train 10,000 startups in AI, expanding access to our AI models like Gemini and Gemma, introducing new language tools from Google DeepMind India, and enhancing the software development process with AI-powered features, with a steadfast focus on responsible AI."

Google says it will support AI startups with up to $3,50,000 in Google Cloud credits to invest in the cloud infrastructure and computational power essential for AI development and deployment. It is also equipping startups with AI-first programming and curriculum through existing programs like Startup School and Appscale Academy.

The company says its Gemini AI model can analyse a vast amount of text, image, video, and code in seconds. "1 million tokens lets you analyze vast amounts of data—up to 1 hour of video, 11 hours of audio, or extensive codebases and text." The 2 million token context window on Gemini 1.5 Pro, previously waitlisted at I/O, is now available to all developers in India, Google informs.

Google has also released Gemma 2, the next generation of open models, for responsible AI innovation to all developers. "Gemma 2 features improvements in performance along with significant built-in safety advancements."

In open-source resources, Google says through Project Vaani, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), it has completed Phase 1, providing developers with over 14,000 hours of speech data across 58 languages, collected from 80,000 speakers in 80 districts. In Phase 2, it aims to cover all states in India spanning 160 districts.

To bring AI into India’s agricultural sector, Google says it will soon launch the Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API, a limited availability tool designed to make agricultural practices more data-driven and efficient.

For developers using the Google Maps Platform, Google slashed pricing by up to 70% on most APIs "to make it even easier to build location-based solutions". Additionally, the company says as part of its collaboration with the government's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), it is offering developers building for ONDC up to 90% off on select Google Maps Platform APIs.