This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Google (GOOG, Financials) said it will invest $15 billion over the next five years to build an artificial intelligence data center in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, its largest investment in India to date.
The facility, announced by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in New Delhi, will initially have a capacity of one gigawatt and expand to multiple gigawatts as operations scale. The data center is part of a global network of AI hubs spanning 12 countries.
State officials said the project is expected to create 188,000 jobs. The announcement increases an earlier estimated investment of $10 billion and comes as Alphabet builds out its global data infrastructure amid rising demand for AI processing capacity.
The company is among several global tech firms expanding their cloud presence in India, alongside Microsoft and Amazon. Local conglomerates led by Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani have also announced large data infrastructure projects.
Alphabet still sees India as an important market because YouTube has the most users there and Android powers most smartphones. But Google is still being watched by regulators and is involved in antitrust litigation because of how it does business in the country.
Google’s regional cloud capacity and AI and business projects across Asia are likely to get a boost from the Visakhapatnam AI campus. The project will start next year, and it is scheduled to grow until 2030.
