New Delhi, Aug 11 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated Chennai-born Sundar Pichai on being appointed Google's chief executive officer (CEO).

"Congratulations Sundar Pichai. My best wishes for the new role at Google," Modi tweeted.

The 43-year-old Pichai, an IIT Kharagpur, graduate, is the second person of Indian-origin to head an IT company after Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella, who became the CEO of software giant Microsoft in February 2014.

Chennai-born Pichai became the CEO of the core business of Google as the search giant in a major corporate restructuring formed an umbrella company called Alphabet.

Several other companies will operate under Alphabet acting as the parent holding company, including Google, a company focused on health efforts called Life Sciences, and a company focused on longevity called Calico.

Pichai, who holds an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has worked at Google, founded in 1998, since it went public in 2004, most recently as the senior vice president of products.

"This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google," said Google chief executive Larry Page in a blog post titled "G is for Google" on Monday.

"A key part of this is Sundar Pichai," he said, adding: "Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I've been tremendously enjoying our work together."