Google to build major AI base in Andhra Pradesh with $15 billion investment

New Delhi:

On Tuesday, Google announced one of its largest-ever commitments in India, pledging to invest $15 billion over the next five years. This massive expenditure is earmarked for setting up a data center and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub in Andhra Pradesh.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian underscored the project's scale at an event in New Delhi, confirming it will be "the largest AI hub that we are going to be investing in anywhere in the world outside of the U.S".

The 1-gigawatt data center campus, part of Alphabet Inc.'s portfolio, will be located in the port city of Visakhapatnam, despite earlier reports from state officials that had estimated the total investment at $10 billion.

New data center infrastructure 

This aggressive move comes as Big Tech companies intensify their competition, pouring significant capital into new data center infrastructure to meet the exploding demand for AI services. Google alone has committed to spending approximately $85 billion this year on expanding its data center capacity. Since AI requires enormous computing power, this surge drives demand for specialised centers capable of linking thousands of chips in high-capacity clusters.

The investment also positions Google against rivals like Microsoft and Amazon, which have already funneled billions into building data centers across India, a vital growth market with nearly a billion internet users. The new Visakhapatnam center will reportedly be the largest in capacity and investment size in Asia, as part of a broader multi-billion-dollar data center expansion across the region, including in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.
As State IT Minister Nara Lokesh summarised, “In an era where data is the new oil, such initiatives will serve as a strategic advantage”.

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