
Google launches Google Safety Engineering Centre, India at Hyderabad
GSEC India to operationalise Google's Safety Charter for India's AI-led TransformationThe first GSEC in Asia-Pacific and fourth globally, brings together privacy engineering, cybersecurity, and responsible AI developmentStrategic partnerships with the Telangana government and academic institutions to strengthen India's digital safety ecosystem
Hyderabad, June 18, 2025: Google today inaugurated its Google Safety Engineering Centre, India (GSEC India) in Hyderabad, the first such facility in the Asia-Pacific region and fourth globally. Telangana Chief Minister Shri Anumula Revanth Reddy inaugurated the facility along with the IT Minister Shri D. Sridhar Babu. It marks a pivotal milestone in the company's commitment to securing India's digital future. The inauguration follows the unveiling of Google's Safety Charter for India's AI-led Transformation in Delhi on 17th June.
GSEC in India will serve as the operational heart where strategic commitments transform into tangible solutions; and represents a unique convergence of Google's global safety expertise, bringing together teams focused on privacy and security engineering, and advanced cybersecurity capabilities under one strategic umbrella to address India's distinct digital landscape.
GSEC India will operationalise the three foundational pillars of Google's Safety Charter—keeping end users safe from online fraud and scams, strengthening cybersecurity for government and enterprise infrastructure, and building AI responsibly—while serving as a regional hub for developing solutions across the broader APAC region.
Preeti Lobana
, Country Manager and Vice President, Google India, said,
" For India's digital engine to keep growing and powering its ambitious future, we must keep building trust in how users and enterprises access the digital landscape. With the inauguration of GSEC India today, we are bringing our global experience and expertise—from cutting-edge AI to foundational cybersecurity and user protection—to realize this commitment. Safety is a shared responsibility and this launch is a call for the entire ecosystem to come together and collaborate to make the entire chain stronger and smarter."
Heather Adkins
, Vice President of Engineering, Google Security, highlighted,
"At Google, safety is built into everything we do, grounded in our 'secure by design, secure by default' philosophy. AI represents an inflection point for digital security - a force multiplier that narrows the gap between defenders and attackers, even eliminating it entirely in some cases . With GSEC India, we're situating these capabilities in India to serve its unique landscape and also be a lighthouse for our global security efforts.'
Shri Anumula Revanth Reddy, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Telangana, emphasised,
"The establishment of GSEC represents a pivotal moment in Telangana's journey toward becoming a global hub for cybersecurity innovation. This first-of-its-kind facility in the Asia-Pacific region affirms Hyderabad's crucial role in developing privacy, safety, and cyber-defence solutions for the next billion users, placing our state at the forefront of global digital safety efforts. With Telangana's GSDP projected to reach ₹16.5 lakh crore and IT/ITeS exports rising to ₹2.7 lakh crore, supporting over 9.5 lakh high-skill jobs, GSEC's presence will attract top-tier safety engineers and foster collaboration with academic institutions to tackle India's unique cybersecurity challenges while creating thousands of direct and indirect employment opportunities."
Shri D. Sridhar Babu, IT Minister, Telangana, stated,
"The inauguration of GSEC India demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships in building a secure digital infrastructure for our nation. This center will serve as a catalyst for innovation in cybersecurity, responsible AI development, and digital safety—areas critical to India's vision of becoming a global technology leader. We welcome Google's significant investment in Telangana's ecosystem and look forward to the transformative impact this facility will have on strengthening our state's position as a premier destination for cutting-edge technology research and development."
Operationalising India's Digital Safety Blueprint
GSEC India addresses India's rapidly evolving threat landscape—where APAC accounts for half of all global APT activity and India faces projected cybercrime losses of up to ₹20,000 crore by 2025—through a comprehensive, proactive approach combining AI-powered threat detection, ecosystem collaboration, and forward-looking policy measures. The facility will operationalise advanced AI and large language models (LLMs) to power real-time scam alerts on Android via Gemini Nano, strengthen Google Play Protect, and enhance fraud detection across Google Pay, Search, and Gmail. It will also tackle AI-driven deception through adversarial testing, AI-assisted red teaming, and tools like SynthID to watermark AI-generated content. GSEC India emphasises ecosystem collaboration and intelligence sharing via platforms like the Global Signals Exchange (GSE), supports education and user awareness initiatives tailored to India's scale and linguistic diversity, and advances research in areas like Post-Quantum Cryptography through partnerships such as its work with IIT-Madras.
Building on a Strong Foundation in Telangana
Google's nearly two-decade partnership with Telangana began with its first Indian office in Hyderabad in 2004—one of Google's largest base outside the U.S. This longstanding collaboration has driven impactful initiatives, including the AnthroKrishi project using AI for sustainable agriculture, traffic optimization systems with Hyderabad Police, and the launch of a Google Startup Hub to accelerate AI adoption. The partnership also extends to skill development through the Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK), enabling access to Google's IT Support Certificates to prepare citizens for the digital economy, underscoring the state's commitment to leveraging technology for inclusive growth.
Global hub for safety innovation
GSEC India lies at the core of Google's mission to advance ethical and responsible AI development through rigorous model testing for safety and fairness, robust content policies, and user-focused transparency tools. As a regional innovation hub, the centre will lead the development of scalable safety solutions tailored to India's unique needs, while also supporting Google's global vision for a safer internet. Its strategic role includes close engagement with policymakers, partners, and customers across APAC, reinforcing India's position as a key driver in the region's digital transformation.
The inauguration of GSEC India represents a transformative moment for digital safety in the Asia-Pacific region, combining Google's cutting-edge technology capabilities with India's fresher talent ecosystem to build a safer, more resilient digital future for billions of users worldwide.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Business Standard
16 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Tesla joins Austin's self-driving race with launch of Robotaxi service
Austin is known for live music, Texas' premier public university and being home to tech companies. It is also becoming a laboratory for autonomous vehicles. Driverless Waymo taxis, owned by Google's parent company, regularly drop off diners at Austin's famous barbecue joints. Box-shaped, four-wheeled robots operated by Avride, a start-up working with Uber Eats, deliver Thai takeout to customers downtown. Zoox, owned by Amazon, and Volkswagen are separately testing autonomous taxis here. Tesla, the electric car company based in Austin, recently joined the party, rolling out self-driving Model Ys ahead of a taxi service that is expected to begin offering rides as soon as Sunday. The vehicles, which the company calls Robotaxis, are part of an audacious effort by Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, to leap ahead of Waymo, which dominates a nascent business that someday could be worth tens of billions of dollars and perhaps much more. But the busy streets of Austin show that Tesla will face significant competition and other challenges. It will have to engage in painstaking experimentation to perfect its technology, which some autonomous-driving experts have criticised for having fewer safeguards than those operated by Waymo and other companies. Also, Tesla is starting from behind. Waymo has been driving paying passengers for years in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and started its commercial service in Austin in March in partnership with Uber. Waymo said on Wednesday that it was applying for a permit from New York City to offer rides with a person behind the wheel. A change in state law would be required for fully autonomous rides. A small fleet of Tesla Robotaxis will begin carrying passengers in Austin on June 22, Musk said on X last week but added the company may delay the start of the service. But analysts expect the cars will be available only to company employees or invited guests. The service will probably not be available to the general public for several months, analysts said. Tesla is adapting its most advanced driver assistance software, already offered as an option on the cars it sells, to operate without human intervention. If this approach works, the company could quickly roll out driverless taxis around the world. Musk has said a software update could allow hundreds of thousands or even millions of existing Teslas to operate as autonomous taxis, making cheap driverless rides ubiquitous. But the approach Tesla is taking is unusual. Waymo and other companies working to offer self-driving taxi services have been developing their technologies for years, painstakingly mapping streets and training their software to avoid hitting pedestrians, cyclists, garbage trucks, fire engines and all manner of other things found on public roads. 'FSD is an immature system,' said Matthew Wansley, a professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York, referring to what Tesla calls its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Another challenge for Tesla is that its self-driving system is under investigation by federal officials. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into whether Tesla's technology was responsible for crashes in conditions where the road was obscured by fog, dust, bright light or darkness. One crash led to the death of a pedestrian.


Mint
3 hours ago
- Mint
Global data breach reportedly hits 16 billion accounts; Google, Apple, VPNs could be affected
In what is being described as one of the most extensive data breaches ever uncovered, security researchers have identified a colossal collection of exposed data comprising more than 16 billion individual records. According to a recent investigation byCybernews, the leaked information was spread across 30 distinct databases, each believed to have been compiled using various infostealer malware strains. These malicious tools, often employed by cybercriminals and sometimes by ethical hackers for research purposes, are capable of siphoning sensitive user data from infected devices. The scale of the leak is staggering. While some datasets were relatively smaller, containing only a few million records, others held billions of entries. The compromised data includes credentials linked to major platforms such as Google, Apple, GitHub, Telegram, and popular VPN services. Worryingly, out of all 30 datasets, only one — containing 184 million records — had previously come to light in the media. Yet this database, sizeable in its own right, 'barely scratches the top 20' of what the researchers ultimately uncovered, theCybernews team said. The researchers emphasised that such massive data leaks are becoming alarmingly routine. 'New giant datasets emerge every few weeks,' they warned, underscoring the growing threat posed by infostealer malware and poorly secured data infrastructure. While the exposed databases were only publicly accessible for a brief period before being locked down, the identities of those responsible for uploading or managing the data remain unknown. It also remains difficult to ascertain precisely how many individuals have been impacted, as many records likely overlap or contain duplicate entries. Given that an estimated 5.5 billion people worldwide now have internet access, the figures suggest that a significant portion of the global online population could have had multiple accounts compromised. Security experts continue to urge businesses and institutions to adopt stronger cybersecurity measures and conduct regular audits of their digital assets to prevent future exposures of this scale.


Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
Google is using YouTube videos to train its AI video generator: Report
Google is reportedly training its AI video‑generation model, Veo, using YouTube's extensive video library leveraging its own platform data stream. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories