HP Inc on Thursday said it is collaborating with Google to manufacture Chromebooks in India.
This partnership will propel a joint vision to support the digital education ecosystem in India and help more students enhance their learning by providing affordable, safe, and high-quality computing devices to education authorities, schools, and institutions, the company said in a statement.
These devices will be manufactured at the Flex Facility near Chennai, where HP has been producing a range of laptops and desktops since August 2020, it said.
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The production of HP Chromebooks will begin on October 2, and will cater to the demand for affordable personal computers (PCs) in India, especially from the education sector.
“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,” Vickram Bedi, Senior Director – Personal Systems, HP India, said.
HP is committed to advancing digital equity, and has been driving many initiatives to enable digital education across India, he added.
Chromebooks are leading devices in K-12 education, helping over 50 million students and teachers across the world, per the statement. Equipped with ChromeOS, these devices have built-in accessibility and security features to deepen classroom connections and keep user information safe, it added.
“The local production of Chromebooks with HP marks an important step in our efforts to continue supporting the digital transformation of education in India. We hope this collaboration will help accelerate the adoption of technology in more schools so that every student and educator have access to the tools and skills to pursue their personal potential,” Bani Dhawan, Head of Education – South Asia, Google, said.
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HP has significantly expanded its manufacturing operations in India since 2020. From December 2021, teh company started manufacturing a wide range of laptops in the country, including HP EliteBooks, HP ProBooks, and HP G8 series notebooks.
It also expanded its portfolio of locally manufactured commercial desktops by adding various models of desktop mini towers (MT), mini desktops (DM), small form factor (SFF) desktops, and a range of all-in-one PCs. These products include both Intel and AMD processor options and cater to a wide range of customer segments.
