New Delhi, October 14 (IANS). Giving information on Tuesday, Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that tech company Google has committed to invest $ 15 billion to build an AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
Speaking to the media after ‘Bharat AI Shakti’, the official pre-summit event of the upcoming India AI Impact Summit 2026, Union Minister Vaishnav said, “India has created a separate and big identity for itself at the global level in IT. In order to maintain this identity and strength of India in this era of AI, it is very important that the infrastructure of AI enters India. Digital infra should come to India.”
He further said, “That’s why Common Compute Facility was brought in the AI Mission and this $ 15 billion investment by Google will also promote the same AI infra. A big compute facility will be built, which will become a big strength for our startups, research and youth.”
Union Minister Vaishnav met PM Modi and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Expressing gratitude to Chandrababu Naidu, he said, “With the vision and efforts of PM Modi, the world’s biggest companies are setting up their infrastructure in India. Similarly, due to the implementation and vision of N. Chandrababu Naidu, this has become possible today in a very short time.”
Regarding the increasing impact of AI, the Union Minister said that due to AI, every aspect of our lives is being affected.
The focus will be on how we can make this impact beneficial, how to make our IT professionals and youth AI-ready by upskilling them as soon as possible, so that India can be the first to take advantage of new opportunities.
Meanwhile, on the X handle regarding the program, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman wrote that PM Modi’s visionary policies have given India a leading position in the digital sector. India will now also be a leader in AI and quantum sectors.
“The India AI Shakti program saw the launch of a 1 GW hyperscale data center campus at Google’s AI City Visakhapatnam. The company will invest up to Rs 80,000 crore over 5 years in this project,” he wrote.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said at the event that this project is a new chapter in India’s digital transformation journey. He highlighted the state’s role in setting up India’s first 1 gigawatt-scale data center and Google’s first AI hub in the country.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian called the AI Hub a historic investment in India’s digital future.
–IANS
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