Android Studio ML kit cannot load OCR module

The solution was to update Google Play Services app. I did not consider this as an option at first as I would have expected an API 29 emulator to have an up-to-date Google Play Services installed. I signed into Google Play on the emulator, searched Google Play Services, uninstalled it (there was no "update" option), and installed it again. It still says that the installed version is 19.4.20 though the text recognition started working as expected. Here are some relevant logs:

W/DynamiteModule: Local module descriptor class for com.google.android.gms.vision.dynamite.ocr not found.
I/DynamiteModule: Considering local module com.google.android.gms.vision.dynamite.ocr:0 and remote module com.google.android.gms.vision.dynamite.ocr:0
D/TextNativeHandle: Cannot load feature, fall back to load dynamite module.
I/DynamiteModule: Considering local module com.google.android.gms.vision.ocr:0 and remote module com.google.android.gms.vision.ocr:1
I/DynamiteModule: Selected remote version of com.google.android.gms.vision.ocr, version >= 1
V/DynamiteModule: Dynamite loader version >= 2, using loadModule2NoCrashUtils

Try adding following in your AndroidManifest.xml

<application>
    ...

    <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.vision.DEPENDENCIES" android:value="ocr"/>

</application>

Documentation can be found at https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/vision/text-recognition/android