From Chennai to Stanford Stadium Sundar Pichai Comes Home as Its Commencement Speaker

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai will deliver the keynote address at Stanford University's 135th Commencement ceremony on June 14 at Stanford Stadium, the university announced on April 2, completing a deeply personal full circle for the Chennai born engineer who arrived on that campus as an international student and left to reshape how billions of people access information.

The address will be Pichai's first ever in person commencement speech. He previously addressed graduates during the virtual "Dear Class of 2020" ceremony on YouTube, but this June he will stand in the stadium of the institution where he earned his master's degree in materials science and engineering in 1995, speaking directly to the generation that will navigate the AI revolution he helped build.

Pichai was personally selected by Stanford's six senior class presidents, who described him as the embodiment of building "a meaningful life" with the mindset of "running a marathon, not a sprint." Stanford President Jon Levin called him "a deeply thoughtful leader who has a vivid sense for how technology can improve society."

The symbolism is unmistakable. Pichai once told how a backpack cost his father an entire month's salary when he first arrived in America. That same young man will now stand before the graduating class of the world's most powerful technology university, at the precise moment when AI is rewriting what every career, every ambition and every human possibility looks like.