The much-anticipated Apple's foray into Andhra Pradesh got a fillip following Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s meeting with the company’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams on Day-2 of his U.S. tour.
Mr. Naidu told Mr. Williams that this was the right time for Apple Inc. to invest in India as it has been growing consistently. Being a State that has just begun building itself from the scratch post-bifurcation, A.P. offered tremendous opportunities.
Apple would do well to enter A.P. which has been adjudged the best State to do business with and has a productive young population, the Chief Minister asserted.
Gopi Sirineni, Vice-president of Qualcomm Technologies, expressed keenness to participate in the A.P. Fibernet project.
Google X, a premier R&D laboratory of Google Inc. situated in California, came forward to offer Internet services up to the village-level in A.P.
Mr. Naidu was an assurance to that effect by Google X CEO Astro Teller, who unveiled the plethora of innovations taking place in his lab in a presentation to Mr. Naidu during the latter’s visit to the Google X facility at Mountain View.
Mr. Naidu was shown the autonomous car manufactured by Waymo — a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., Google glasses and high-altitude balloons that provide Internet access to rural areas.
Later, Mr. Teller and Mr. Naidu had discussions on possible areas of collaboration between Andhra Pradesh government and Google X.
During a separate interaction with potential investors, Russ Drinker, Director (global architecture, sustainability and environmental wellness) of M Moser Associates — a leading U.S.-based architecture and designing firm, evinced interest in partnering with Andhra Pradesh government in the construction of Amaravati.
Padmasri Warrior, founder of NIO electric vehicle company and former Chief Technology Officer of CISCO and Motorola and Sridhar Vembu, founder of California-based software major Zoho Corporation, were among those who called on Mr. Naidu later in the evening.
The Andhra Pradesh government signed MoUs with Innova Solutions, I-Bridge Inc and Evx Solutions, which are expected to provide jobs for over 12,000 people in the State.
