‘Will ensure AI for all’ – PM Modi ‘delighted’ as Google announces $15 billion AI project in Vizag

Google announced on Tuesday that it will invest $15 billion over the next five years to build a massive Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centre in Andhra Pradesh. This marks one of the company’s biggest-ever investments in India. The 1-gigawatt data centre campus will be located in the port city of Visakhapatnam.  “It’s the largest AI hub that we are going to be investing in anywhere in the world outside of the US,” Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, said.

Hailing the landmark development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to X and said that he was “delighted” by the news. “This multi-faceted investment that includes gigawatt-scale data center infrastructure, aligns with our vision to build a Viksit Bharat. It will be a powerful force in democratizing technology,” the PM said. He further added that the new AI hub will also ensure “AI for All” which will help in delivering modern and cutting-edge tools to the citizens of India. This will not only boost the country’s digital economy but also secure India’s place as a “global technology leader”, PM Modi said.

‘Monumental day for India’: Adani ‘proud’ to partner with Google

Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group, shared on X (formerly Twitter), “A monumental day for India! Adani is proud to partner with @Google to build India’s largest AI data centre campus – in Visakhapatnam – engineered specifically for the demands of artificial intelligence.”

He added, “This facility will house the TPU and GPU-based compute power required for deep learning, neural network training, and large-scale AI model inference and create an ecosystem that accelerates AI-driven solutions for India’s most critical sectors – from healthcare and agriculture to logistics and finance.”

‘Great to speak with PM Modi,’ shares Sundar Pichai 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai also posted on X, “Great to speak with India PM Narendra Modi to share our plans for the first-ever Google AI hub in Visakhapatnam, a landmark development, he wrote”

Pichai further said, “This hub combines gigawatt-scale compute capacity, a new international subsea gateway, and large-scale energy infrastructure. Through it we will bring our industry-leading technology to enterprises and users in India.”

What this means for India: All you need to know

Google’s data centre will be the largest in both capacity and investment size in Asia. It is part of a multi-billion-dollar expansion of Google’s data centre network across the region, including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, according to a Reuters report.

The move comes amid growing competition among global tech giants. Companies are investing heavily in new data centres to meet rising demand for AI services. Google alone has committed around $85 billion this year to expand its data centre capacity. AI needs massive computing power, which drives the demand for specialised data centres that can link thousands of chips together in clusters, the report mentioned.

Microsoft and Amazon have already invested billions in building data centres in India, a key growth market where nearly a billion users access the internet.