Google has committed to investing approximately $15 billion over the next five years (2026-2030) to build its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. This marks the company's biggest single investment in the country to date and is part of a broader push to expand AI capabilities amid surging global demand for cloud and AI services.
The announcement comes amid evolving India-US tech ties, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasizing local innovation, yet highlighting Google's role in accelerating India's "AI-first nation" vision. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly discussed the project with Modi, underscoring its potential to deliver "AI for All" through tools for businesses and citizens.
This investment builds on Google's 2020 pledge of $10 billion for India over five years, focusing on digitization and now shifting toward AI dominance in a market where YouTube and Android already lead.
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Key Details of the Project
- Location and Scale: The hub will feature a purpose-built data center campus with initial 1-gigawatt compute capacity, scalable to multiple gigawatts. It will include a new international subsea cable gateway connecting to Google's global network of over 2 million miles of cables, enhancing connectivity for India's eastern coast.
- Partners: Google is collaborating with AdaniConneX (a joint venture between Adani Group and EdgeConneX) for data center construction and Bharti Airtel for the subsea cable landing station.
- Timeline: Construction and rollout are planned over five years, with the project announced on October 14, 2025, during an event in New Delhi.
- Economic Impact: Andhra Pradesh officials estimate the project could generate up to 188,000 jobs. It aligns with India's AI mission by providing local data solutions, boosting digital economy growth, and supporting over 900 million internet users.
Strategic Context
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian described the Visakhapatnam hub as "the largest AI hub we are investing in anywhere outside the US," part of a network across 12 countries. This follows Google's global capex hike to $85 billion in 2025 for AI infrastructure, driven by competition from rivals like Microsoft and Amazon, who have also invested billions in Indian data centers. Indian conglomerates like Adani and Reliance are similarly expanding capacity to meet AI's enormous computing needs.The announcement comes amid evolving India-US tech ties, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasizing local innovation, yet highlighting Google's role in accelerating India's "AI-first nation" vision. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly discussed the project with Modi, underscoring its potential to deliver "AI for All" through tools for businesses and citizens.
This investment builds on Google's 2020 pledge of $10 billion for India over five years, focusing on digitization and now shifting toward AI dominance in a market where YouTube and Android already lead.
Google to spend $15 billion on AI data centre in biggest India investment
Google said on Tuesday it would invest $15 billion over five years to set up an artificial intelligence data centre in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh, its biggest ever investment in the world's most populous nation.
www.reuters.com
