Google announces $15 billion data center expansion plan in India, largest after US

Google has recently unveiled plans to invest $15 billion in the expansion of data centers in India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh over five years.

The investment is considered the biggest ever for India, considering the world’s largest AI hub outside the US.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said at a New Delhi event, "It is the largest AI hub that we are going to be investing in anywhere in the world outside of the United States.”

"It is a part of a global network of AI centres in 12 different countries. The data centre campus in the port city of Visakhapatnam will have a capacity of 1-Gigawatt initially, but will be scaled to multiple gigawatts", Kurian added.

According to state officials, the investment is expected to create 188,000 employment opportunities.

Nara Lokesh, minister for Human Resources Development of Andhra Pradesh posted on X, the deal is the result of a “year of intense discussions and relentless efforts and this is just the beginning.”

India has recently witnessed massive investments in AI infrastructure and cloud computing.

Besides Google, Amazon and Microsoft have already invested billions into data centers establishment in India.

Google parent company Alphabet considers India as a significant growth market, known for plenty of YouTube users and dominance of Android phones.