Google To Invest $15b In Indian Ai Infrastructure Hub

Google is making a $15 cardinal finance to group up a 1-gigawatt information halfway and AI hub successful India, moreover arsenic nan Indian authorities pushes for reduced reliance connected U.S. tech giants.

On Tuesday, Google said it would build nan information halfway successful nan confederate authorities of Andhra Pradesh, successful nan larboard metropolis of Visakhapatnam. The finance will return spot complete nan adjacent 5 years done 2030, nan institution added. Notably, this marks Google’s largest finance successful India and comes 5 years aft it first announced a $10 cardinal commitment to nan South Asian federation successful 2020.

Weeks aft President Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff connected Indian imports successful August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi began urging nan usage of “swadeshi” (Hindi for “made successful India”) products. In response, Indian lawmakers and ministries started promoting section alternatives to Google — including those from Chennai-based endeavor tech patient Zoho Corporation, which offers competitors to Google Cloud and Gmail, and astir recently, WhatsApp-rival Arattai, arsenic good arsenic MapMyIndia, a Google Maps-rival. While nan first effect has been limited, these moves could airs a existent governmental threat to nan early of companies Google and Microsoft successful India.

Google has 14,000 labor successful India, and has operated successful nan state for 21 years. The institution besides counts Delhi and Mumbai arsenic charismatic unreality regions.

The caller Google AI hub will beryllium nan company’s largest finance extracurricular of nan U.S., said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, adding that it would beryllium scaled to “multiple gigawatts” complete time.

“It is portion of a world web of AI centers successful 12 different countries,” Kurian said astatine nan motorboat of nan AI hub successful New Delhi. “In summation to that, we’re besides pleased to denote that we will beryllium making Vishakhapatnam a world connectivity hub.”

Google besides announced plans to bring its subsea cablegram infrastructure to Visakhapatnam. The U.S. tech elephantine has collaborated pinch Indian telecom supplier Bharti Airtel to build some nan information halfway and nan cablegram landing position successful nan city. Further, Google has teamed up pinch Adani Group-backed AdaniConneX to group up nan infrastructure for nan information center.

Google’s AI hub motorboat successful India pinch Indian lawmakersImage Credits:Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch

“We spot it not conscionable becoming a landing position for a ample number of cables, but besides providing a integer backbone connecting different parts of India together,” Kurian said.

Google said nan AI hub will connection a “full stack of solutions,” including its civilization Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to alteration section AI processing.

The Mountain View–based institution will besides supply entree to its AI models — including Gemini — and its level for building agents and applications. The hub will additionally support user services specified arsenic Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Google Ads.

“We spot this hub not conscionable serving India but from India serving Asia and different parts of nan world,” Kurian said.

Google’s prime of Visakhapatnam successful Andhra Pradesh is not surprising. The confederate state, nether Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, has antecedently attracted world tech firms for illustration Oracle and Microsoft to group up hubs successful Hyderabad, which was Andhra Pradesh’s superior earlier nan creation of Telangana. Naidu, a cardinal governmental state who supported Prime Minister Modi’s return to power successful nan past wide election, has since played a salient domiciled successful shaping nationalist argumentation discussions.

“This AI hub will beryllium a very important publication to nan [India] AI ngo goals successful different ways,” said Indian IT curate Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The curate urged Google to see India’s Andaman Islands arsenic nan adjacent awesome hub for world net information transfer, noting that Singapore “is each choked,” and assured nan institution of afloat authorities support. He besides projected linking Visakhapatnam pinch Sittwe, a metropolis successful Myanmar, to amended connectivity successful India’s northeastern states.