New Delhi: A big shift is taking shape on India’s east coast. Google is preparing to set up its first large-scale data centre cluster in the country, and it has picked Visakhapatnam as the home for the project. The investment is worth $10 billion, or roughly Rs 88,730 crore at current currency conversion, and is being described as the biggest direct push by Google into India’s digital economy.
The project will not just be a cluster of servers hidden inside buildings. It is designed as a full-fledged digital infrastructure hub, complete with submarine cables, landing stations, and high-capacity fiber networks. If all goes as planned, this cluster could be operational by July 2028 and will become part of India’s first international AI Infrastructure Hub.
Three campuses, global scale
According to documents reviewed by Economic Times, the plan involves three campuses in and around Visakhapatnam. The sites are Adavivaram village and Tarluvada village in Visakhapatnam district, and Rambilli village in Anakapalli district. Together, the cluster will have 1 GW of capacity, making it one of the largest of its kind anywhere in Asia.
The Andhra Pradesh government, led by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, is expected to approve the proposal through the State Investment Promotion Board. The deal’s finer details are also set to be discussed between Google executives and state IT and electronics minister Nara Lokesh in New Delhi on October 14.
Largest direct investment yet
Sources told ET that “the project is expected to be the largest-ever direct investment by Google and its subsidiaries in India’s digital economy.” For context, Google already operates 29 data centre sites across 11 countries, from the US and Japan to Denmark and Chile. But this new facility in Visakhapatnam would be its first of this size in India and the largest in Asia.
Naidu had signed an MoU with Google back in December 2024, within months of returning to office. Since then, officials from Google’s Asia Pacific team visited Visakhapatnam, with Lokesh personally accompanying them to potential sites. The effort has been part of a longer conversation on how to build the right environment for data hubs in India.
Building a data city vision
Earlier this year, Naidu had floated changes to the IT Act and Copyright Act to support “data cities.” The Indian government later released a draft framework for data centres, aiming to give investors more clarity on rules. Google’s requirements for infrastructure growth were said to be one of the reasons for these policy moves.
The project will also require the landing of three submarine cables and large-scale metro fiber networks, which could eventually connect Visakhapatnam more directly to the global internet backbone. That means Andhra Pradesh may not just be hosting data, but also acting as a gateway for information flow across regions.