Google is set to invest $15 billion over the next five years to establish a massive artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. This initiative marks Google's largest AI hub investment outside of the United States. The announcement was made in New Delhi by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
The Visakhapatnam project will feature a 1-gigawatt data center campus, combining AI infrastructure, extensive energy sources, and an expanded fiber-optic network. This includes a new international subsea gateway that will connect to Google's existing network of over 2 million miles of terrestrial and subsea cables. The hub is designed to provide a full stack of AI infrastructure to serve Google's needs and support entrepreneurs, enterprises, and commercial organizations in India. Data will be housed locally to meet sovereign AI requirements, and Google will deploy its own models, including Gemini, Imagine, and Veo.
Google is also partnering with Adani Enterprises to develop India's largest AI data center campus in Visakhapatnam. This collaboration, executed through Adani's joint company AdaniConneX with ecosystem partners like Airtel, involves co-investments in new transmission lines, clean energy generation, and advanced energy storage systems to support the data center's operations.
The investment aims to accelerate AI innovation and drive growth across India by providing cutting-edge technology and local data solutions. According to Google, the hub will bring its industry-leading technology to enterprises and users in India. Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed the company's plans with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, highlighting the hub's potential to support India's growing digital economy. Modi stated that the investment aligns with India's vision to become a developed country and will democratize technology, ensuring AI is accessible to all citizens.
This move positions Google among U.S. tech companies expanding their presence in India. Amazon has pledged $12.7 billion to strengthen its cloud infrastructure by 2030, and OpenAI is planning a one-gigawatt data center under its Stargate initiative. Industry estimates suggest data center investments in India will exceed $100 billion by 2027.
According to state IT minister Nara Lokesh, these initiatives will serve as a strategic advantage in an era where data is the new oil. Kurian emphasized that the Visakhapatnam project is the company’s largest AI hub investment anywhere in the world outside of the U.S. Google currently has 14,000 employees across five locations in India, with cloud solutions available in the New Delhi and Mumbai regions, where it also manufactures devices. The AI hub will utilize Google's proprietary TPUs (Processing Units), which are twice as power-efficient.
