The new AI hub would combine powerful AI infrastructure, data centre capacity, new large-scale energy sources and an expanded fibre-optic network with an “all in one place” approach, making Vizag and AP position in a unique manner to drive India’s AI transformation.
Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government would sign an agreement with Google in New Delhi on Tuesday to develop a one gigawatt hyper-scale data centre in Visakhapatnam.
The deal would facilitate nearly Rs.10 billion investment to anchor ‘AI City Vizag’. This will be one of the largest projects for Google in Asia, wherein the IT giant would deploy its full AI stack to help accelerate AI-driven transformation across India.
The new AI hub would combine powerful AI infrastructure, data centre capacity, new large-scale energy sources and an expanded fibre-optic network with an “all in one place” approach, making Vizag and AP position in a unique manner to drive India’s AI transformation, an official note circulated on Monday said.
AP and Google would sign the pact at a hotel in New Delhi around 10 am in the presence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, IT minister N. Lokesh, senior Google executives like Thomas Kurian (CEO, Google Cloud), Bikash Koley (VP, Global Infrastructure), Karan Bajwa (President, Asia Pacific Google Cloud) and others. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and information minister Ashwini Vaishnaw would also grace the event.
Moreover, the ceremony would outline the roadmap for India’s first AI Hub anchored by a 1-GW data centre in Vizag, which would be connected to Google’s global network via resilient subsea and terrestrial systems and designed with clean-energy integration.
Lokesh said, “Andhra Pradesh signs tomorrow what the future will remember out, the 1- GW Google data centre in Vizag; the first step in making AI City Vizag that would act as India’s digital powerhouse. This is a transformative project for the future of AP.”
Expectations are that the project will facilitate an average annual GSDP contribution of Rs.10,518 crore during 2028-2032 and support about 1.88 lakh jobs per year along with Google Cloud-enabled productivity spillovers of Rs.9,553 crore annually, which could reach Rs.47,720 crore over five years.
The project was approved by the state investment promotion board chaired by the Chief Minister with streamlined facilitation through single-window clearances, reliable utilities, renewable integration and plug and play infrastructure. These would be led by the economic development board and the department of information technology, electronics and communications, the official note stated.
