Visakhapatnam: Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., has announced plans to invest $15 billion to build a significant artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud data hub in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, marking the company's largest single investment outside the United States. The new facility will be established in the port city of Visakhapatnam and will form part of Google's global network of AI data centers across 12 countries.
According to Qatar News Agency, Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, stated during an event in New Delhi that this will be the largest AI hub investment Google will make outside of the United States. The investment is planned over the next five years. Andhra Pradesh's Minister of Information Technology, Nara Lokesh, highlighted the project's potential impact, calling it a significant leap for the state's digital future, innovation, and global standing.
The state government has indicated that the new hub will include a 1-gigawatt data center campus that will integrate advanced AI infrastructure, renewable energy systems, and an expanded fiber-optic network to support growing digital connectivity. This development comes amid intensifying global competition among major technology firms to expand data center capacity to meet the rising demand for AI-driven services.
Google's commitment to spend approximately $85 billion this year on data infrastructure worldwide underscores its strategic focus on enhancing data capabilities. Meanwhile, competitors such as Microsoft and Amazon have also made substantial investments in India, a market with nearly one billion internet users.