HP Inks Alliance With Google To Make Chromebooks In India

Leading PC maker HP has inked an alliance with Google as it seeks to manufacture Chromebooks in India from October 2, said the company on Thursday.

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter), and said: "We are partnering with HP to manufacture Chromebooks in India. These are the first Chromebooks to be made in India and will make it easier for Indian students to have access to affordable and secure computing."

According to a PTI report, the Chromebook devices is expected to be manufactured at the Flex Facility near Chennai, where HP has been producing a range of laptops and desktops since August 2020, it said in a statement.

"Manufacturing Chromebook laptops in India will allow Indian students to get easy access to affordable PCs. By further expanding our manufacturing operations, we continue to support the Make in India initiative of the government," HP India, Senior Director - Personal Systems, Vickram Bedi said.

HP is one of the applicants under the government's Rs 17,000 crore production linked incentive scheme for IT hardware, added the PTI report.

"The local production of Chromebooks with HP marks an important step in our efforts to continue supporting the digital transformation of education in India," Google, Head of Education - South Asia, Bani Dhawan said.

Chromebooks come at a lower price compared to notebooks with proprietary operating system, stated the PTI report.

According to the statement, Chromebooks, which come with Google's ChromeOS, are the leading devices in K-12 education, helping over 50 million students and teachers across the world.