Google | Pakistan

Google says the AI infrastructure build-out will involve development of three new data centres in the country's north

Shehbaz Sharif calls signing ceremony a wonderful day in Pakistan, Google partnership Says our youth can really turn around Pakistan’s fortunes n Addresses participants of Balochistan National Workshop Rejects violence, attacks on innocent people in Balochistan, says grievances should be addressed through dialogue.

Islamabad - A 9-member delegation of Google, led by Mr Wilson White, Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy, called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Google opens doors to Pakistan's digital future

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday unveiled the foundation plaque of Google’s Pakistan office and described it as a significant milestone in the country’s digital transformation journey.

Google VP announces to make Google Gemini subscriptions free for one year for all Pakistani students

Alphabet’s Google was fined a total of €890 million ($1 billion) on Thursday for flouting European Union rules aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech, the European Commission said. However, the US tech giant is likely to avoid fresh fines as EU regulators lauded good progress in its ongoing efforts to comply with the landmark legislation. The fines underscored Europe’s determination to prevent Big Tech companies from thwarting rivals, defying US criticism and retaliatory tariff threats. One fine of €460 million was handed out to Google by the European Commission under the Digital Markets Act for favouring its own services in shopping, hotels, transport and sports results in search results. A second fine of €430 million targeted Google’s restrictions on its app store Google Play, preventing app developers from steering users free of charge to cheaper offers on rival app stores or websites. Reuters was the first to report on both fines, which are the first for the US tech giant under the DMA but the fifth an...

EU imposes €890 million in fines on Google over Digital Markets Act breaches

Google has announced an expanded digital skills initiative for Pakistan, increasing the total number of Google Career Certificates available to 350,000 to help students and professionals develop in-demand digital and artificial intelligence (AI) skills.

The Delhi High Court ruled against Google in the case, ordering it to pay damages of $31,600 and other costs

Google has put limits on Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models after the social media company sought more computing capacity than the rival tech group could provide, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Google, owned by Alphabet, told Meta around March it could not meet the full Gemini capacity the company had sought to purchase, the newspaper said, adding that the shortfall disrupted and delayed some of Meta’s internal AI projects. Several other Google clients have also been affected, though to a lesser extent, according to the report. Meta has been particularly impacted due to its exceptionally high demand for Google’s models, the FT said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, which cited people familiar with the matter. Google and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours. Due to the restrictions, Meta has encouraged staff to be more efficient with AI tokens, the units that measure AI usage, the FT report said. Even as companies continue to spend billions on...

Tech giant Google on Tuesday marked the ceremonial start of work on its largest artificial intelligence hub outside of the United States with a groundbreaking ceremony in India. The firm promised in October 2025 to spend $15 billion over five years to construct the vast centre in Visakhapatnam, a southeastern port in Andhra Pradesh state of around two million people, popularly known as “Vizag”. “Today marks the first concrete milestone in Google’s largest commitment to India’s digital future,” Bikash Koley, Google’s Vice President for Global Infrastructure, told the ceremony. “This project represents a $15bn blueprint to deliver a full stack AI ecosystem,” he added. “At its core is our gigawatt scale data centre campus, purpose built for the immense computational demand of the AI era, powering services like Gemini and Google Search.” Nara Lokesh, information technology minister for Andhra Pradesh state, said he was “excited as we embark on this journey to build India’s most coveted AI and deep-tech hub”. Viza...

KARACHI: The government and Google have launched a joint initiative, ‘AI Seekho 2026’, to equip Pakistan’s youth with artificial intelligence skills through vibe coding. To accelerate the country’s transition into a global digital economy, Google for Developers, in strategic collaboration with the information technology and telecommunication ministry, Telenor and Innovista, has announced the launch of AI Seekho 2026. This nationwide initiative aims to equip developers and young professionals with cutting-edge artificial intelligence capabilities, entirely free of financial barriers. Multi-partner ecosystem As an unprecedented industry collaboration, AI Seekho 2026 is powered by a robust multi-partner ecosystem. Google for Developers leads the end-to-end execution, providing free cloud credits and platform access, supported by the Google Developer Groups and Google Developer Experts communities. In phase two, there will be a physical hackathon where developers participating in this phase will be required to bu...

Google will build new subsea cables from its planned artificial intelligence (AI) hub in India and other locations, the US company announced on Wednesday, as New Delhi hosts a major artificial intelligence summit. Global tech giants are racing to unveil deals and investments in the country this week, as world leaders and top industry figures gather to discuss the opportunities and challenges that AI poses. Google’s announcement follows its October commitment to spend $15 billion over five years to construct its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States, in Visakhapatnam, an Indian port city in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, also known as Vizag. The US giant said it would build “three subsea paths connecting India to Singapore, South Africa, and Australia”. It will also create “four strategic fiber-optic routes that bolster network resilience and capacity between the United States, India, and multiple locations across the Southern Hemisphere”. These would include a direct cable connect...

Tech giants Apple and Google on Monday announced a multi-year partnership that will see Apple’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) features, including its Siri assistant, be powered by Google’s Gemini technology. The collaboration marks a significant shift for Apple, which has traditionally developed its core technologies in-house. A joint statement said Apple selected Google’s AI technology after a “careful evaluation” determined it provided “the most capable foundation” for the iPhone-maker’s AI ambitions. The announcement represents a rare alliance between two companies that have long competed in the smartphone market, where Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems dominate globally. However, the two rivals have maintained a lucrative partnership for years, with Google paying Apple billions of dollars annually to remain the default search engine on iPhones and other Apple devices. That arrangement has faced scrutiny from regulators, with the US Justice Department arguing in an antitrust...

Alphabet’s Google has advised some employees on US visas to avoid international travel due to delays at embassies, Business Insider reported on Friday, citing an internal email. The email, sent by the company’s outside counsel BAL Immigration Law on Thursday, warned staff who need a visa stamp to re-enter the United States not to leave the country because visa processing times have lengthened, the report said. Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Some US embassies and consulates face visa appointment delays of up to 12 months, the memo said, warning that international travel will “risk an extended stay outside the US”, according to the report. The administration of US President Donald Trump this month announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, including screening social media accounts. The H-1B visa programme, widely used by the US technology sector to hire skilled workers from India and China, has been under the spotlight after the Tru...

India’s government is reviewing a telecom industry proposal to force smartphone firms to enable satellite location tracking that is always activated for better surveillance, a move opposed by Apple, Google and Samsung due to privacy concerns, according to documents, emails and five sources. A fierce privacy debate erupted in India this week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after activists and politicians raised concerns about potential snooping. For years, the Modi administration has been concerned that its agencies do not get precise locations when legal requests are made to telecom firms during investigations. Under the current system, the firms are limited to using cellular tower data that can only provide an estimated area location, which can be off by several meters. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance’s Jio and Bharti Airtel, has propo...

Alphabet’s Google and venture capital firm Accel will partner to fund at least 10 early-stage Indian AI startups, marking the US technology giant’s first such funding partnership, top executives at the companies said on Thursday. The move comes as several US tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI make a beeline for the world’s most populous nation, seen as a critical growth market where nearly a billion users access the internet. Under the partnership, Google’s AI Futures Fund and Accel will co-invest up to $2 million in each startup, Prayank Swaroop, partner at Accel, told Reuters in an interview, with the investments focused on the wide areas of entertainment, creativity, work and coding. The announcement comes after Google in October said it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an AI data centre in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, its biggest-ever investment in the country. Its AI Futures Fund, launched six months ago, has funded over 30 companies, including Indian webtoon s...

Tech giants Google and Amazon agreed to use a secret code to evade legal obligations in countries around the world to serve Israeli interests, a report by The Guardian has revealed. The joint investigation, conducted with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, highlights how a $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal in 2021 (known as Project Nimbus) between Israeli government and the tech firms had an “unusual demand”, i.e., agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the “winking mechanism”. Project Nimbus was a joint contract that aimed to provide cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology services to the Israeli government and its military, which has faced condemnation for its war on Gaza, described by United Nations experts and several countries as a genocide. Google employees based in the United States also staged protests last year at the tech giant’s offices in New York City, California an...

Google on Tuesday said it would invest $15 billion in India over the next five years as it announced a giant data centre and artificial intelligence base in the country’s south. “It is the largest AI hub that we are investing in anywhere outside of the US,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, at a ceremony in New Delhi. He announced “capital investment of $15bn” over the five years and a “gigawatt-scale AI hub in Visakhapatnam”, a city in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Google has plans for the centre to eventually “scale to multiple gigawatts”, Kurian added. Demand for AI tools and solutions has surged in India — projected to have more than 900 million internet users by year’s end — driven by growing adoption by businesses and individuals. India’s Information Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, thanked Google for the investment. “This digital infrastructure will go a long way in meeting the goals of our India AI vision,” he said. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu called it a “very...