Google Cloud unveils new initiatives to boost Indian AI startups

Under the Google for Startups Cloud Program, early-stage founders receive $200,000 in Google Cloud credits, while AI-first startups receive $350,000 in Google Cloud credits

Google also announced a partnership with incubator Y Combinator to provide access to NVIDIA H100 GPUs and mentorship to its cohort of AI-first startups by summer 2024

At the event, Google Cloud also announced a partnership with healthtech startup DeliverHealth to build clinical documentation solutions

Google Cloud has announced a slew of new partnerships and programs to fuel the growth of early-stage artificial intelligence (AI) startups in the country.

The initiatives were announced at Google’s AI Startups Summit in Bengaluru on Thursday (November 7).

At the event, the company said select early-stage founders will receive $200,000 in Google Cloud credits under the Google for Startups Cloud program. Additionally, AI-first startups selected under the same initiative can benefit from $350,000 in Google Cloud credits.

In a statement, Google also said it is partnering with incubator Y Combinator to provide access to NVIDIA H100 graphics processing units (GPUs), Google Cloud tensor processing units (TPUs), cloud credits and mentorship to startups selected in the Summer 2024 cohort of AI-first startups.

Additionally, Google will partner with accelerators and incubators such as 500, StartX, and Berkeley Skydeck, among others, to provide guidance and technical workshops to early-stage AI startups in the country.

Meanwhile, the company also touted its recently launched ‘Emerging ISV Partner Springboard’ initiative at the event. The twelve-week program provides support to AI startups in building go-to-market assets, product refinement, technical architecture guidance and best practices.

“Google wants to enable AI startups to drive innovation and growth. These initiatives demonstrate our commitment to providing critical support and resources to early-stage founders, helping them build and scale successful AI-powered companies,” said Senior Research Director at Google DeepMind Manish Gupta.

At the event, Google Cloud also announced a partnership with healthtech startup DeliverHealth to build clinical documentation solutions. Under the partnership, Google Cloud said its Gemini 1.5 Pro multimodal AI models power DeliverHealth’s products, which allow physicians to document patients’ journeys entirely through voice, including aspects such as summaries of lab results and patient notes.

“Our partnership with DeliverHealth reflects our shared commitment to innovation through the transformative potential of GenAI by automating tedious tasks and improving efficiency and accuracy. Together, we want to reshape the future of clinical documentation, allowing physicians to focus more on patient care,” said Bikram Singh Bedi, vice president and country managing director of Google Cloud India.

DeliverHealth CEO Sasanka Yellamanchali added: “DeliverHealth is excited to partner with Google Cloud to bring healthcare’s most accurate and intuitive medical speech engine directly to those on the front lines… With Google Cloud’s AI models and our ability to create human-generated medical documentation, physicians can simply speak and know their words will be accurately translated into structured, billable documentation…’

India is home to more than 100 GenAI startups which raised more than $600 million between 2019 and 2023.