April 30 (Reuters) - Google would be discouraged to

invest in search engine technology if antitrust enforcers

succeed in their bid to make the company share data with rivals,

the company's CEO Sundar Pichai testified on Wednesday morning

at a trial in Washington.

Pichai is testifying in the Alphabet unit's

defense against proposals by the U.S. Department of Justice

including selling its Chrome web browser to boost competition

among online search providers.

Provisions that would require the company to share its

search index and search query data are "extraordinary," and

amount to a "defacto divestiture of our IP related to search,"

Pichai said.

"It would be trivial to reverse engineer and effectively

build Google search from the outside," he said.

That would make it "unviable to invest in R&D the way we

have for the past two decades," Pichai added.

The outcome of the case could fundamentally reshape the

internet by potentially unseating Google as the go-to portal for

information online.

The DOJ and a broad coalition of state attorneys general are

pressing for remedies to restore competition even as search

evolves to overlap with generative AI products such as ChatGPT.

Prosecutors are concerned that Google's dominance in search

could extend to AI.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Google,

the site and app where most U.S. internet users search for

information, "has no true competitor." Google maintained its

monopoly in part by paying billions of dollars to companies

including Apple ( AAPL ), Samsung, AT&T ( T ) and Verizon

to be the default search engine on new mobile devices, the judge

said.

The DOJ wants the judge to end those payments and require

Google to share search data with competitors.

Google has said the proposals would give away its hard work,

and jeopardize its users' privacy and endanger smaller companies

like Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, that rely on

Google for revenue.

The company recently loosened its agreements to allow device

makers and carriers to pre-install other search and AI apps,

according to evidence shown at trial. Google has said it plans

to appeal once the judge makes a final ruling.