India will soon be a global player in the digital economy: Sunder Pichai

Confident that India will soon be a global player in the digital economy, Google CEO Sundar Pichai today said that in the next three or four years, big software companies will be coming out of the country.

Pichai, speaking at the IIT Kharagpur campus, said,

India will be a global player in the digital economy, and it will be competitive with any country in the world. There is a timing issue. We are doing well as a country. We need to stay at it. We need a few more years and we will get to it. I am absolutely confident.

Also read : Google has always aimed to build for a billion people: Sundar Pichai on Google’s India plans

When asked by a student to comment on whether India can take on China, he said that within the next five to ten years, we will see big global software companies coming out of India.

Also read : India shapes how we build our products: Sundar Pichai, Global CEO, Google

Pichai advised Indian companies to aim higher and compete with MNCs, as the local market is not large enough to invest in technology. Pichai, while asking Indian companies to set their sights higher as trends are in their favour, said,

Part of the problem is that in India, the potential is there and the market is developing. It will take a few more years for it to realise its potential. The digital market is still developing.

Pichai’s visit to New Delhi for Google’s Digital Unlocked event has generated enough buzz around what could possibly transpire and what Google’s plans are vis-a-vis India, especially the India that resides in small towns. Pichai believes that a large part of India is yet to understand its power. He said,

Imagine if every single small business owner were to leverage the power of internet and information. The economy would simply boom. Google aims to give those businesses that power.