Google IO Connect Bengaluru 2023: Top announcements from the event

Google today hosted the Google IO Connect Bengaluru 2023 event in India today. At first of its kind event, the company not only shared a host of new tools and technologies for its developer community in India, but it also showcased the scalable solutions that the company has developing in the country.

From announcing support for ONDC to showcasing generative AI-based applications, here is everything that Google announced at the Google IO Connect Bengaluru 2023 event today.

Everything Google announced at IO Connect Bengaluru 2023 event

— At the event, Google said that developers in India can now access its large language model (LLM), that also powers Bard, through PaLM API and MakerSuite. The company also said that the generative AI support is also available on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. This development will help developers build and power custom enterprise-ready generative AI applications.

“With this update, developers can access our text model powered by PaLM 2, Embeddings API for text, and other foundation models in Model Garden, and leverage user-friendly tools in Generative AI Studio for model tuning and deployment,” the company wrote in a blog post.

At #GoogleIOConnect Bengaluru, Rahul Sukthankar talks about how we’re making it easier for developers to boost their productivity with Generative AI.

Developers in India will now have access to both PaLM API and Makersuite 🇮🇳
Sign up to know more https://t.co/Zzb55P7B1n pic.twitter.com/1WC7ZfSyMw

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) June 28, 2023

— At its event in Bengaluru, Google also announced support for Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC. “We’re excited to launch an accelerator program for ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) to help businesses with the tools and resources they need to build and scale their digital commerce operations,” the company wrote.

In addition to this, Google announced that it is introducing a startup credits program where organisations that enable ONDC are eligible to apply for a USD $25,000 grant.

.@GoogleCloud_IN is launching an Accelerator Program for @ONDC_Official and making it easier to onboard the network by bringing in technology to enable better consumer experiences when it comes to buying and selling online.

Know more: https://t.co/9wnh9CIb7L#GoogleIOConnect pic.twitter.com/YcjI3jSIvN

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) June 28, 2023

— Google, last year, launched Project Vaani in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to collect anonymised speech data from people across 773 districts. At the IO Connect Bengaluru 2023 event today, the company announced that the IISc is open sourcing these datasets, which will give developers access to over 4,000 hours of speech data across 38 languages, collected from over 10,000 speakers from 80 districts. They can then use these datasets to build their own technology and applications to cater to the needs and requirements of the people who speak these languages.

We’re opening access to Google’s research models and datasets to help developers build meaningful solutions with India-focused speech data and location information.

Hear more on this from Rahul Sukthankar, VP, Research, Google at #GoogleIOConnect: https://t.co/9wnh9CIb7L. pic.twitter.com/pyODh5IO6x

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) June 28, 2023

— At the event, the company also announced that it is open-sourcing its Open Buildings datasets in India, which is based on satellite imagery that identifies the locations and outlines of over 200 million buildings in the country. “We hope this will streamline the work of developers, authorities, and aid organizations, across urban planning and humanitarian response, environmental and climate science, essential services such as health and education, and more,” the company added.

— Google launched Project Bindi in India last year to evaluate and mitigate biases in Natural Language Processing in the Indian socio-cultural context. Since then, the company says that it has built the SeeGull Database, which is a global stereotype benchmark with broad geo-cultural coverage, including stereotypes existing within India. Google says that this database is now open sourced and that it will be available to developers in the coming month.

— At the event, the company also announced improvements to its Maps API in India. Google said that it is launching Address Descriptors, an India-first experimental feature in 25 Indian cities, available through the Reverse GeoCoding API, to enable developers to help their customers find addresses easily. “With Address Descriptors, developers can save time, reduce errors, and deliver a more intuitive customer experience,” the company added.