The State Information Technology Minister, Nara Lokesh, said the “AI revolution is here, no second thoughts about it,” adding that India has decided to fully embrace this new technology wave.
The coastal city of Visakhapatnam, also known as “Vizag,” is being positioned as the center of this ambitious project. The city, home to nearly two million people, is better known for hosting international cricket matches, but now it is being reshaped into a global technology hub.
Lokesh said Andhra Pradesh has secured investment agreements worth $175 billion across 760 projects. Among them is a $15 billion investment by Google to build its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States.
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A joint venture between Reliance Industries, Brookfield from Canada, and US-based Digital Realty is also investing $11 billion to develop an AI data center in the same city.
The planned “data city” will spread across a 100-kilometre radius. For comparison, Taiwan is roughly 100km wide. The city is also expected to serve as a landing point for submarine internet cables connecting India to Singapore.
Lokesh said the plan is not limited to data centres alone. The state is offering land to major investors at one US cent per acre to attract global companies. He wants manufacturers of servers, cooling systems, and other related equipment to set up operations there.
He claimed that Andhra Pradesh received close to 25 per cent of all foreign direct investment coming into India in 2025.
India currently ranks third in a global AI power index compiled by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, based on indicators like patents and private funding.
In December, Microsoft announced it would invest $17.5 billion in India’s AI infrastructure, calling it the company’s “largest investment ever in Asia.”
However, critics argue that India still lacks advanced computing power and remains more of a consumer of AI technology rather than a creator. Some also question whether large data centers will create enough jobs.
Lokesh dismissed these concerns. He said every industrial revolution has created more jobs than it has destroyed, but only in countries that chose to adopt change quickly.
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He added that the state has planned for the huge electricity and water needs of data centers. Surplus monsoon water flowing into the Bay of Bengal could be used for cooling systems.
The state is targeting six gigawatts of data center capacity, with three already signed and three more in the pipeline. New Delhi has also given in principle approval for six 1.2GW nuclear power plants at Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh.
“We are on a journey,” Lokesh said. “We will execute these projects at a pace that the country has never seen”.
