After Microsoft Azure, it's time for Indian developers to exit Google Maps: Ola CEO

Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and Chairman of the Ola group, said on Monday that after exiting Microsoft Azure Cloud, it is time for the developers to shun Google Maps, as he announced one-year free access to all developers to Ola Maps on AI-driven Krutrim platform, along with more than Rs 100 crore in free credits.

Last week, the ride-hailing company Ola exited Google Maps and shifted to in-house Ola Maps for cab operations. The move has apparently saved the company nearly Rs 100 crore a year.

“We've been using western apps to map India for too long and they don't get our unique challenges: street names, urban changes, complex traffic, non-standard roads, etc,” Aggarwal said.

He said that Ola Maps tackles these challenges with AI-powered India-specific algorithms, real-time data from millions of vehicles, leveraging and contributing massively to open source “with more than 5 million edits just last year” to the Open Street Maps.

“We're outperforming competitors on location accuracy, search accuracy, search latency and ETA accuracy,” said the Ola founder.
In a separate blog post, the company said Ola Maps is built to utilise the most diverse set of data and send updates in near real time to ensure the most accurate mapping data as possible.

“Our AI first data systems utilise real time data from millions of vehicles using Ola Maps, fleet of Ola S1's equipped with 360 cameras, open-source government data repositories, OpenStreetMap, partnerships and proprietary sources to build essential map features such as roads, points of interest, street furniture, building geometry and traffic signals,” the company explained.

Last month, Aggarwal cut all his ties with Microsoft Azure and shifted his company's entire workload to in-house AI platform Krutrim.