Sundar pichai, can be said to embody two. Born to a modest, middle class family in south east india, pichai is globalisation made flesh. The personification of both the indian and the american dream. And as the boss of alphabet, the Parent Company to google and youtube, he is uniquely qualified to detail the promise and the peril of technology in our time. Valued at over 1. 5 trillion, his California Based Company pioneered the internet we have today and is a Global Leader in both Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing. Google delivers a vast range of products and services, from google maps and docs to gmail. Pichais total pay ranges hugely, from 7 million last year to 281 million in 2019. Sundar pichai has given interviews before, but rarely as much time as this. There are no agreed questions and nothing is off limits. Sundar interview, take four. A mark. B mark. Sundar, lets start by talking a bit about this moment in history. In my work for the bbc over the last few years, ive been arguing that were living through a kind of epoch shift. Technology is central to that. When you think about your career, when you think about the pandemic weve just been through, the transformations to come, where do you think you would put us . Where do you think we are as a species in the long story that is humanity . Wow, its a big question. Well start big, and well get narrower as we go along. Look, ive always felt there is this constant progress which comes with technology, and it almost happens whether or not humans actually want that level of progress. I go through these Thought Experiments and i ask, what must it have been when the Printing Press was invented or during the Industrial Revolution . But i do think the change is accelerating, if you will. And just when youre getting used to something, things seem to be moving on beyond that. You said to the New York Times in 2018, technology doesnt solve humanitys problems. It was always naive to think so. What did you mean by that . Technology is an enabler, so i think its a powerful enabler. But i dont think it has answers to the deeper or more meaningful questions. It can shine a light on things, it can make some things better, it has a dual side to it, it can make things worse. Im incredibly energised by what technology can do. Ive felt it through my life. And even through covid, looking at the vaccine technology, the fact that we could solve vaccines ina year. Its an incredible feat, so i look at those things but it still is not going to solve making sure the entire worlds population gets vaccinated. You know, thats where its up to humans and society and Policy Making to solve problems like that. Youve now been in the us forjust over a quarter of a century, and in that time theres been a revolution. The internet has transformed every aspect of our lives. One of the things youre paid to do is to think long term. As you think about the next quarter of a century, how do you think a, Artificial Intelligence, and b, Quantum Computing are going to compare with the internet in terms of a total transformation of our lives . The progress in Artificial Intelligence were still in very early stages, but i view it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on. And we have to make sure we do it in a way that we can harness it to societys benefit. But i expect it to play a foundational role pretty much across every aspect of our lives. On the plane over here, i read an essay on Artificial Intelligence by henry kissinger. It was in the atlantic. The headline was, how the enlightenment ends. And the sub headline was, philosophically, intellectually, in every way, Human Society is unprepared for the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Do you think hes right . Partly. You know, i think people always underestimate human potential, i think. Humanity� s worked through. I put myself in what would it have been to be in the 1930s . Theyve gone through world war i, spanish influenza, youre going through a depression, and world war iis about to happen. So, you know, i do think today is far better than that time. And so we work through a lot of challenges. So, im optimistic that way. But hes right in the sense that this is a bit different than most things we have dealt with in the past. Take Climate Change for example, were all concerned about it now. Who would have predicted Something Like the paris agreement, people coming together pretty much countries from around the world. Theres still a lot of work ahead, but you can see the right conversations beginning to happen and you feel the urgency, and so i also see evidence that humanity rises to the occasion. Right . So, i think it will play out a similar way. Isnt ai and Climate Change fundamentally different in this sense . If someone dumps dumps some carbon in the sky, its bad for you and its bad for me, so we should make a deal to get that carbon out of the sky. Isnt the point about al that the different needs of different societies in different nations will use ai for different ends, and so because of that, Artificial Intelligence isnt a sphere of cooperation, its a sphere of competition. And so, are people right to worry. For instance, do you worry that if google, america, doesnt take control of the future of ai, china will . Look, i definitely think therell be a competitive aspect to it. Therell be National Security aspects to it. And those are all important questions. But where i draw the parallel to Climate Change is ai is profound enough that youre going to reach safety on a unilateral basis. You know, because the world is connected and so, for you to to really solve peaceful coexistence with al, you would again over time need global frameworks and constructs, and everyone will get affected the same way, just like climate. And i think thats what will draw people together. Nothing is a given. We have to get there. But i do think as the world becomes more prosperous when there is economic growth, Everyone Wants the same thing at the end, to some extent. People want to do well, they want peace. So, you build on those ideals and connect places together. In preparation for this interview, youll be pleased to know, i spent many hours studying Quantum Computing mostly on youtube, actually, which youre ultimately responsible for. And as i understand it from my student days studying physics, at the quantum level, the subatomic level, particles arent necessarily particular states of matter. Right . So, Computing Today is based on this Binary Distinction between zeros and ones. In Quantum Computing, thats going to be based on the idea you can be both zero and one and all the states in between at the same time. Does what ive just said make any sense at all, and if it does, how is that going to transform our lives . I think you did a good job of Quantum Computing 101. I think its perfectly accurate. And what it does is, now you can simulate, you can capture the complexity, because you can keep track of many more states at once rather than just zero and one. A single qubit compared to a classic bit can take on a many more possibilities. So, thats what gives us that computational advantage to better simulate and better understand the world. An example of what i talk about is the way we develop nitrogen fertiliser. This process now counts for 2 of all energy consumption. Its brought tremendous benefit to the world, but in nature, you know, it happens much more efficiently. And we still dont quite understand how. But for us to be able to better simulate that, Quantum Computing one day can offer us the chance to do that. So, we can design better batteries, maybe we can simulate the weather better and hence predict adverse events better, so the possibilities are endless. 18 months ago, google announced it achieves quantum supremacy. In other words, that your Quantum Computer carried out a calculation that would take atraditional computer around 10,000 years to complete, let alone a human being. 18 months on, how much more progress have you made . And what sort of advances have you made from that first milestone . Im very excited at the progress. It is a long term thing. What we are looking to do next is to build something called an error corrected Quantum Computer. All that means is we have shown it can work, but we have to show that it can be stable enough. Quantum computers are very fragile. So, were just trying to design stable Quantum Computers, which is probably still a decade away. Were building the state of the art labs and we have a clear goal, and hiring people and working towards making progress. Lets turn to some of the controversies and criticisms that you face as a company. And i want to focus on three broad lines of attack with which youre familiar privacy, capitalism and what you could broadly call the health of our public domain, so our culture. First of all, Privacy Ijust think it would be really valuable for people to hear from the boss of google, the boss of alphabet, whether or not you think privacy matters for human beings . Does it . Absolutely. I think its foundational to everything we do, its an important human right. Im glad as a society we are regulating and thinking about comprehensive privacy rights in the context of the digital age and Digital Economy we live in. I dont think we would be able to do what we do without users trusting us in important moments. We understand that. And its something we have to earn all the time. And so, weve always felt we are stewards of peoples data. We give them control and choice. But they have to ultimately trust us to do it right, yeah. For people who think of google as essentially a company that has built very detailed profiles on all of us and uses that and sells it to advertisers, what would you say to those people who think that the way you get rich is by profiling them . I think most of the data. Let me answer it in two parts. Most of the data today we store is in products like gmail and photos, so that we can give that information back to you when you want it. For advertising, if you think about it, we just need limited contextual information. If you come and type digital cameras in google, understand youre looking for digital cameras, were able to get you that right commercial information. We may need to know your location so we can give you relevant information next to you, and thats what users expect. So, in some ways, this is misunderstood. The Privacy Sandbox will prevent an individual� s web browsing being tracked and will use a new set of tools to allow Digital Advertising to be targeted. Some of your colleagues in europe tell me that this idea of this thing called the Privacy Sandbox is going to be a really critical moment in allowing google to do what it does without needing so much users� data. Can you just explain how much of a leap Privacy Sandbox is and why it should reassure some people . Because as well get onto, there are others that worry it will actually consolidate your power further. Like i gave the example around federated learning and google keyboard, i think we can invest in Privacy Preserving Technologies which still allows us to give users the benefit they want, allows Business Models to exist on the internet which keeps it free and open, which people value. They tell us they value that. They deeply value their privacy as well. So, in some ways, its the balance we are trying to strike by creating the next set of Privacy Preserving Technologies. And yet, the uks Competition And Markets Authority highlighted concerns about the potential it has to undermine competition in Digital Advertising, and as they put it, entrench google� s market power. Why are they wrong to worry . There are times we work in ecosystems where there are many players with differing views. As a company, we are making the best decision, we want to operate in a construct in which we can make the best decisions for our customers, and it works for us as a company. But im glad, we want other people to look at that and validate it. I do think, and the uk Competition Authority is looking into this, there are times there are good issues at the intersection of privacy and competition, and i think they are legitimate questions and important questions, and we would welcome clarity in some of these areas, too. So, we want to engage constructively because itll give us sometimes certainty around which way the regulator would prefer us to do it. So, you accept that there is a possibility that you are going to end up entrenching market share and you want this scrutiny because you want an almost independentjudgment on it . We do our internal reviews to make sure its pro competitive and pro innovation oriented. But we want others to validate it. And i view it as a conversation. Those who call you surveillance capitalists. You may be familiar with the work of shoshana zuboff. She wrote a book called the age of surveillance capitalism. A simple version of her argument is that you guys are the richest spies in history. I know you guys would refute that, but the more complex version of her argument operates on a couple of levels. First, we have today the Richest Companies in Human History whove gotten rich by tracking our behaviour online. And the second part of her argument is we have today the biggest asymmetry of knowledge in history. Do you think any of that is fair . Theres a lot to unpack here. As i said before, we use information to provide services back, which is why we give users the choice. In fact, by default now, we automatically delete data after 18 months, and they can choose it to be shorter timeframes. I think if you go back to various periods in history, i think there was more asymmetry. Very few people had access to knowledge. I genuinely think we are radically improving access to information. We may be taking it for granted, but it doesnt change the fact that today theres more access to information at someone� s fingertips than at any point in humanitys history, too. But there are people who say, and ill be interested in what you say about this, that when it comes to inequality, you guys are the problem. In the first three months of this year, alphabet posted revenue of 55. 3 billion, up 34 from a year earlier. Net profits more than doubled to 17. 93 billion. Injust three months, this company grew by the entire Gross Domestic Product of mali, a proud african nation of 20 million people. Let me ask you, director, to what extent are you guys the causes of inequality . Weve always had this construct in a capitalist system, and people who do well at the top really make a disproportionate share. As a company, though, i think we track the Economic Activity we impact. Remember were helping businesses, particularly small and medium businesses, get online, establish themselves, reach users and grow their business. And we measure that, we measure it in many countries we operate in. I am 76 tall. I weigh 260le. My brain is bigger than yours. Youre facing this extraordinary suite of anti trust measures which is an an attempt to say google is too big. In your view, can google ever be too big . Sometimes you need scale to do the kinds of things which others cant do. Its Big Companies which can develop mrna vaccines in a short period of time, so there is clear value. At the same time, we need to make sure Small Companies can emerge and innovate, and i think thats equally important to society as well. Google invests in many start ups. Googlers, we call them xooglers people who have left google and gone out have i think started more than 2000 companies in the last decade, and many of them a re successful. And i sit here and i look at all the newer products and services that have emerged in the last few years. People worry that scale gives you disproportionate power. I mean, thats the basic issue. For people to understand, as we sit here today, i was looking up your market capitalisation, alphabet� s about 1. 6 trillion. That would make you the tenth richest country in the world. On a parallel with south korea. Richer than australia, spain, mexico, indonesia, the netherlands, saudi arabia, turkey, switzerland. Never before in Human History have a few companies had greater clout than whole nations. Isnt that alarming . I think we shouldnt confuse annual revenues versus gross domestic. I mean, ithink about it differently. You know, ifeel were accountable in every country, to governments, to regulators, to society, to our customers. And we are more than. I wouldnt overthink this. I think about are weinnovating enough so that were relevant ten years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now . I know the work that goes into it to earn that every year. We have to re earn it. Genuinely, i look at my kids, at the choices they have, i look at what they consume we worry about being relevant. H