Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Mr N Chandrababu Naidu today laid the foundation for Google AI Data Center in Visakhapatnam thereby unfolding a new era in Andhra Pradesh’s technology landscape.

The AI Data Center is expected to mark a historic milestone in India’s technology sector.

With this advanced facility, Visakhapatnam is poised to emerge as a key AI gateway for Asia and secure a permanent place on the global technology map. The prestigious project will position Visakhapatnam city along with world’s leading technology hubs.

Google is going to invest USD 15 billion in the project, making it one of the largest Foreign Direct Investments in India’s history.

The AI Data Center will have a capacity of 1 Gigawatt. The project has become possible due to the coalition government’s proactive Speed of Doing Business policy aimed at attracting large-scale investments.

India’s Union minister for Railways, electronics and information technology, Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw hailed the project and opined Vizag will now be called as AI patnam.

“It is applaud worthy to see how this project has gathered steam in such a short time frame”, said the minister. He requested the Google team to manufacture their servers in India which he said will be needed in volumes.

With the upcoming subsea cable connectivity system, Visakhapatnam will soon have direct digital links with several countries. The data center will provide large-scale data storage capacity along with advanced AI cloud infrastructure.

Visakhapatnam’s coastal location makes it highly suitable for an international submarine cable landing station.

The data center will be developed across nearly 600 acres in Tharluwada, Adavivaram and Rambilli regions with a total capacity of 1 Gigawatt.

Companies such as AdaniConneX and Airtel Nxtra are partners in the project. The government’s long-term vision is to build a multi-gigawatt digital hub with a total capacity of 6.5 Gigawatts across the state.

Beyond infrastructure, the Google Data Center is expected to generate significant employment opportunities. Thousands of jobs are likely to be created in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, cloud operations, maintenance, cybersecurity, cloud architecture and data science. Revenue generated through data centers will further strengthen the state economy.

“This is India’s largest FDI investment ever” said AP’s IT minister Mr Nara Lokesh.

The project is also expected to attract investments in allied sectors including power systems, cooling technologies, server manufacturing and networking, helping create a robust AI ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh.

Google AI cloud services are expected to position Visakhapatnam as a major technology hub in Asia.

AI-driven companies are also likely to choose the city as their destination. IT startups, research centers, cloud firms and semiconductor companies are expected to establish operations in the region.

The government is making arrangements to ensure green energy supply for data centers proposed by Google and other technology firms.

Hailing the project Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Mr M SriBharat acknowledged the support extended by the Central Government which he said has been pivotal in realizing the resolve to bring this state-of-the-art data center to the state.

He also applauded the visionary leadership of the Chief minister Mr Naidu in getting this mammoth project to Vizag.

“Bringing a data centre of this magnitude takes a lot of commitment and policy-level support”, said Mr Sribharat.

Addressing the gathering virtually Google cloud’s CEO, Mr Thomas Kurien said “This AI hub in Vizag is a strategic blueprint designed to fuel India’s Viksit bharat 2047 vision”

Similarly, US Consul General at the US consulate in Hyderabad, Ms Laura Williams said that this project celebrates the US-India partnership in technology.

Speaking on behalf of Nxtra by Airtel Mr Rakesh Bharti Mittal lauded the leadership of CM Naidu in getting this project.

“AP has always been recognized for its innovative ways of industrial growth, large scale transformation projects, more importantly policy clarity, speed of execution and long term vision” said Mr Mittal.

He added that this project is going to be the gateway for intelligence, digital India.

Speaking on the magnitude of this project Mr Jeet Adani noted India today stands at 1.3 gigawatts of data centre capacity.

“We are envisioning 1 gigawatts just in a single location. This tells the scale of transformation,” said Mr Adani.