Tuesday, a Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Perplexity AI co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas, met in Paris and, as a result, sparked social media frenzy. Quite a few Internet users commented on the Indian state of Tamil Nadu they all have in common, and others wondered whether Google had a specific plan to buy Srinivas’s company.
Two tech CEOs were attending the AI Action Summit in Paris, hosted and co-chaired jointly by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Srinivas took to X to share a photo of himself with Pichai. In the picture, both were dressed in formal attire—Pichai sporting a blue necktie and Srinivas opting for red. “Great meeting you Sundar Pichai,” Srinivas captioned the post.
Great meeting you @sundarpichai pic.twitter.com/Z0yzYhsHgd
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) February 11, 2025
Social Media Reactions
The post rapidly gained momentum, accumulating almost 500,000 views in a few hours and generating a torrent of comments. Many users celebrated their Indian origins, Pichai, originally from Madurai, spent much of his early life in Chennai, while Srinivas was born in Chennai over two decades later. Furthermore, both graduated from engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), with Pichai IP IIT Kharagpur and Srinivas IP IIT Madras.
One X user summed up the sentiment, writing, “Chennai boys ruling the AI world.” Another user cleverly coined the phrase “ChennAI Express,” which delighted many. Someone simply commented, “Chennai boys,” while another noted, “Just two people from Chennai dominating search for the entire world.”
ChennAI Express!
— Sandip Kamat (@sankam) February 11, 2025
Some users speculated whether Google might be considering an acquisition of Perplexity AI. “Does he know you’re his competitor?” one person questioned. “Real life version of (keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer)”, said another.
Not to mention, a few of the commenters even went as far as to suggest that this meeting may be the moment of transition in the tech world. “Moments of power shift in tech, one person observed, referring to Perplexity AI’s growing presence as a competitor in the search engine space.”
