New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, along with Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister Nara Lokesh, laid the foundation stone for Google’s AI Data Hub in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, April 28. The project is being positioned as one of India’s largest technology infrastructure investments, with Google expected to invest $15 billion, around ₹1.35 lakh crore, over five years.
The AI hub will come up across nearly 600 acres in Tarluvada, Adavivaram and Rambilli regions. It is planned as a 1 GW AI-powered data centre hub and will be developed by Google’s India subsidiary, Raiden Infotech India Pvt Ltd. For Andhra Pradesh, this is not just another data centre project. It is a serious attempt to put Visakhapatnam on the global AI and cloud map.
Google AI hub foundation laid in Visakhapatnam
According to officials, the state has allocated land across three locations for the project. This includes 266.6 acres in Tarluvada, 160 acres in Adavivaram and 174.80 acres in Rambilli in Anakapalli district. The land has reportedly been charged at ₹1 per acre under the India Semiconductor Mission.
The project will be implemented over the next five years. It is expected to bring AI cloud infrastructure, large-scale data storage, sub-sea cable systems and fibre connectivity to the region. In simple terms, this is the kind of backend infrastructure that powers AI tools, cloud services and enterprise platforms that people use every day without seeing the servers behind them.
Why this matters for India’s AI plans?
The Visakhapatnam hub was first announced in October 2025 as Google’s first AI hub in India. At the time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai called it “a landmark development” and said the hub would combine “gigawatt-scale compute capacity, a new international subsea gateway, and large-scale energy infrastructure.”
That matters because AI needs huge compute capacity. Think of it like a massive engine room for AI services, cloud platforms, research work and business tools. Only this one sits near India’s east coast and could plug into global internet routes through subsea cables. That could help reduce dependence on older cable landing systems in Mumbai and Chennai, while giving India another major digital gateway.
Jobs, startups and a new tech ecosystem
Google has claimed that the AI hub can generate 1.88 lakh jobs, with around 60,000 jobs during the construction phase. These jobs are expected across artificial intelligence, cloud operations, cybersecurity, cloud architecture, data science, maintenance and infrastructure work.
Minister Nara Lokesh said, “With the establishment of an AI Data Center—spearheaded by Google—Visakhapatnam has officially secured a prominent place on the global IT map.” He added that Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had earlier transformed Cyberabad into a premier Hi-Tech City, and said projects involving Google and ArcelorMittal showed the “rapid influx of investments into the region.”
Visakhapatnam’s big tech moment
The state government wants to build a multi-gigawatt digital hub with a total capacity of 6.5 GW across Andhra Pradesh. Companies such as AdaniConneX and Airtel Nxtra are partners in the Google AI Data Hub project.
The planned subsea cable landing system could give Visakhapatnam direct digital links with several countries. Add Bhogapuram International Airport and green energy plans, and the city suddenly looks like a serious contender in India’s next tech growth story. For Vizag, this may be one of those rare moments where a port city starts becoming a cloud city too.
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