one year on
Google commits $15B to build 1-gigawatt AI hub in Visakhapatnam
The company's largest investment in India pairs a gigawatt-scale data center with a new subsea cable landing, even as New Delhi pushes for less reliance on American tech.
Originally published Published on this site
Google will invest $15 billion over five years to build a 1-gigawatt data center and AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, the company said Tuesday. The campus, developed with Bharti Airtel and Adani Group-backed AdaniConneX, is Google’s largest investment in India and its first AI hub in the country. It will house Google’s full AI stack, including custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and access to Gemini models, and will support consumer services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Ads.
The hub will also anchor a new international subsea cable landing station in Visakhapatnam, adding route diversity to existing landings in Mumbai and Chennai. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the facility would scale to multiple gigawatts over time and serve not just India but from India serve Asia and other parts of the world. The announcement was made at Bharat AI Shakti in New Delhi, with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in attendance.
The investment lands amid a push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for swadeshi products and growing political momentum behind local alternatives to U.S. tech giants. Vaishnaw welcomed the commitment as a boost to India’s AI mission while urging Google to consider the Andaman Islands for future connectivity. Google employs 14,000 people in India and has operated there for 21 years.
The record
called the investment a landmark for India's digital future, said the hub will serve not just India but from India serve Asia and other parts of the world, and noted it is Google's largest investment outside the U.S.
thanked Google for the $15 billion announcement, said it will help meet India AI mission goals, and asked Google to consider the Andaman Islands for the next global internet data hub, noting that Singapore is choked.
called the investment a new chapter in India's digital transformation and said Andhra Pradesh is proud to host India's first truly gigawatt-scale data center and Google's first AI hub in the country.
One year later — open only if you can handle spoilers
Construction began on April 28, 2026, when Google broke ground on the Visakhapatnam hub at Tarluvada with partners AdaniConneX and Airtel's Nxtra.
Filed
Compiled and edited by Adam Allcock.
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