Visakhapatnam: Across the world, from Virginia to Dublin, data centres have had a significant impact on the entire ecosystem. The state of Andhra Pradesh does not merely view the Google data centre as a $15 billion investment but as an investment in a robust ecosystem and the beginning of a transformative journey, said Andhra Pradesh IT and HRD minister Nara Lokesh.
Speaking at the Bharat AI Shakti Conclave, hosted by Google in partnership with the Andhra Pradesh government in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, Lokesh noted that the world is shifting from heavy industries to digital infrastructure, from manufacturing to machine intelligence. Visakhapatnam is evolving once again in this journey.
Describing the investment as India's single largest FDI ever, Lokesh emphasised that it is not incremental growth but transformational in scale for Visakhapatnam. For the first time, Vizag will have a subsea cable landing station, enabling the city to compete with other states in terms of connectivity. Just as ports connected the city to the world in ancient times, these cable landing stations will digitally connect Visakhapatnam to the globe.
This investment is expected to create nearly two lakh direct and indirect jobs in Visakhapatnam, with new industries emerging around the ecosystem. The state sees it not merely as a project but as an economic multiplier. Visakhapatnam is poised to become the epicentre of economic growth for Andhra Pradesh, driven by AI, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
Lokesh added that what took Hyderabad 30 years to achieve, the state intends to accomplish in the next decade in Visakhapatnam. With industry support, geographical advantages, and policy stability, he believes they can deliver history together and leave a lasting legacy. The conclave served as a platform for suppliers, industry partners, and infrastructure stakeholders to explore how to translate and accelerate Google's anchor investment into a tangible economic value chain for the region.
Themed 'Collaborating to Deliver India's AI Corridor,' the conclave highlighted that Google's investment in Visakhapatnam is designed not only to build world-class infrastructure but to catalyse a broader technology ecosystem that multiplies benefits to the local economy.
