AP, New Delhi — US tech giant Google is investing in a $10 billion fund to help accelerate India’s transition to a digital economy in the next five to seven years.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc’s Google, said on Monday that the project will focus on building products that are relevant to India’s needs and empowering businesses for their “digital transformation”.

“Our goal is to ensure India not only benefits from the next wave of innovation, but leads it,” Pichai said in a digital keynote at a Google for India event.

The company also announced it will invest $1 million to support digital education in India. It said the fund will enable one million teachers in 22,000 schools across the country to use Google services that can facilitate online learning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made digitisation a major priority for India, his government says.

He envisions a “Digital India” where high-speed Internet access will empower entrepreneurs to build software and other technology products to help raise the standard of living in a country where many households are still impoverished.

The Indian premier styles himself as a leader in touch with technology and has nearly 60 million Twitter followers.

Modi said in a tweet that he and Pichai met and discussed a wide range of subjects, “particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs”.

This morning, had an extremely fruitful interaction with @sundarpichai. We spoke on a wide range of subjects, particularly leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India’s farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs. pic.twitter.com/IS9W24zZxs

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 13, 2020

“I was delighted to know more about the efforts of Google in several sectors, be it in education, learning, Digital India, furthering digital payments and more,” he said.