GOOGLE on Tuesday held a groundbreaking ceremony to begin work on its largest artificial intelligence hub outside the United States, with the project located in India.
The company said in October 2025 that it would invest $15 billion over five years to build the centre in Visakhapatnam, a port city in Andhra Pradesh with a population of around two million, also known as Vizag.
"Today marks the first concrete milestone in Google's largest commitment to India's digital future," Bikash Koley, Google's Vice President for Global Infrastructure, said at the ceremony.
"This project represents a $15 billion blueprint to deliver a full stack AI ecosystem," he added.
"At its core is our gigawatt-scale data centre campus, purpose-built for the immense computational demand of the AI era, powering services like Gemini and Google Search."
Nara Lokesh, information technology minister for Andhra Pradesh, said he was "excited as we embark on this journey to build India's most coveted AI and deep-tech hub".
Vizag is being positioned as a landing point for submarine internet cables linking India to Singapore.
"By establishing Vizag as an international subsea gateway, we will add vital diversity to the existing landings in Mumbai and Chennai, increasing the resilience of India's digital backbone and improving economic security," Koley added.
"New strategic fibre optic routes will further connect India with the rest of the world."
Data centres are expanding globally due to growing demand for storing digital data and supporting artificial intelligence tools.
"This is a pivotal moment for India, Vizag and for Google," Koley added.
(With inputs from agencies)
