Ola Maps is also available for developers (Express Photo)
On Friday, Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that the company is exiting Google Maps in favour of its in-house Ola Maps. In an X post, Aggarwal wrote, “We used to spend 100 crores a year, but we’ve made that 0 this month by moving completely to our in-house Ola Maps!”
You have exhausted your monthly limit of free stories.
Read more stories for free with an Express account.
This comes months after the company transitioned from Microsoft Azure to an in-house cloud infrastructure to power the ecosystem and also to run the company’s large language model (LLM) Krutrim.
Aggarwal also stated that in the coming days, Ola Maps will gain more features such as street view, neural radiance fields (NERFs), indoor images, 3D maps, drone maps, and more.
Ola has attributed OpenStreetMap on its app, indicating the Ola Maps solution has been built on top of it, along with proprietary data from Ola. OpenStreetMap is an open-source and free-to-use map, with an open license.
While Google Maps is free to use for consumers, businesses like Ola, which incorporates the Application Programming Interface (API) into their solutions, have to pay a fee. While Ola might be able to cut this recurring cost with an in-house solution, there will definitely be a deployment cost for all the hardware and software solutions required to run and maintain Ola Maps.
Ola Maps will not be limited to the company’s solutions such as the ride-hailing platform and electric vehicles; Ola Maps API will be available for both Android and iOS, allowing developers to incorporate it into their apps and services at a cost via Krutrim Cloud.
Technology on smartphone reviews, in-depth reports on privacy and security, AI, and more. We aim to simplify the most complex developments and make them succinct and accessible for tech enthusiasts and all readers. Stay updated with our daily news stories, monthly gadget roundups, and special reports and features that explore the vast possibilities of AI, consumer tech, quantum computing, etc.on smartphone reviews, in-depth reports on privacy and security, AI, and more. We aim to simplify the most complex developments and make them succinct and accessible for tech enthusiasts and all readers. Stay updated with our daily news stories, monthly gadget roundups, and special reports and features that explore the vast possibilities of AI, consumer tech, quantum computing, etc.
