Vizag to have Google’s largest AI hub outside US

GOogle on tues proclaimed its second-largest AI hub exterior the US, which it testament run out of Vizag in Andhra Pradesh. The company will invest $15 billion over the next five years to deploy its full AI stack, marking its biggest investment in India. The announcement comes after Google and the Andhra Pradesh government signed a formal MoU to develop the hub and associated infrastructure.“It [Google AI hub] is part of a global network of AI centres in 12 different countries, but it is the largest one that we will be building anywhere in the world outside of the US,” said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, adding that the data centre will scale to multiple gigawatts in the future. He recalled that the company has been in India for the last 21 years with over 14,000 employees in the country.The hub will feature a data centre campus built in partnership with AdaniConneX and Airtel, adding gigawatt-scale compute capacity to run Google products and help Indian businesses tap into AI. The project also includes a new international subsea cable landing in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), boosting India’s internet speed and global connectivity.Also present at Google’s launch event, ‘Bharat AI Shakti,’ in New Delhi were Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra IT minister Nara Lokesh, and minister of state for communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani.Naidu took a moment to reflect how far India’s technology journey had come, from building Hyderabad’s HITEC City in the late 1990s to now hosting data centres and AI hubs in 2025. He recalled bringing Microsoft to Hyderabad back then, noting that Google’s arrival in Visakhapatnam signalled how much the technology landscape had evolved and matured.“In India, penetration and use of AI is very high. And we have to drive to take [it to the] next level. With all our things - one is digital connectivity, second is data centre and AI - real time data collection and also integration of historical data and global knowledge. It will be a deadly combination,” said Naidu, adding that India can achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision well ahead in time.While data centres are often criticised for their heavy water and energy consumption, Naidu told HT that AP has surplus resources and does not expect any issues on that front. Google said it will work with local partners to expand clean energy and strengthen the state’s electricity grid, keeping the hub running efficiently and sustainably.Karan Bajwa, president of Google Cloud for the APAC region, said that the company has a clear goal of being Net Zero by 2030 and that Google is already carbon neutral. “A lot of data centres that we are building are with clean energy. That is the reason we decide on locations and places and countries,” he added.At the event, which was also a pre-event for the AI Impact Summit India is hosting next year in February, IT minister Vaishnaw proposed Andaman to become the next data hub as Singapore, one of Asia’s top data centre hubs.“Singapore today is all choked. Why can’t we make Andaman the next major hub for global internet data transfer? From the Government of India’s perspective, we will provide full support for this initiative. The Andaman Islands can help Google and other internet-based organisations to connect to Southeast Asia, Australia, and other regions that are seeking new data capacity,” said Vaishnaw. The minister also proposed establishing a Vizag to Sittwe (Myanmar) link to strengthen digital connectivity in the North-Eastern states, highlighting the need to enhance the existing RailTel network.“A large part of this AI compute facility will be part of the common compute under the AI mission. We welcome your [Google’s] TPU’s to compete with Nvidia’s GPUs,” added Vaishnaw jokingly. The India AI Mission provides over 38,000 GPUs, including Nvidia GPUs, to startups, students and researchers at a subsidised rate.Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on X that he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and shared with him the company’s plans for the first-ever Google AI hub in India. “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, accelerating AI innovation and driving growth across the country,” added Pichai on X.