New Delhi, Oct 25 (IANS) India is building the infrastructure that could one day power the world’s digital intelligence and the Adani Group and Google Cloud, which are constructing a huge $15 billion AI data centre campus — the largest outside the United States — marks a turning point, according to a new report.

The Newsweek article states that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India must “lead the world in the responsible use of artificial intelligence and build the infrastructure that powers it,” many saw it as a distant ambition.

“Today, that vision is taking shape on the Bay of Bengal,” it said.

Google has announced an AI hub in Visakhapatnam, with an investment of approximately $15 billion over five years (2026-2030) – its largest investment in the country to date. PM Modi has said that the Google’s gigawatt-scale compute capacity infrastructure in India aligns with the vision to build a Viksit Bharat.

This multi-faceted investment that includes gigawatt-scale data centre infrastructure “will be a powerful force in democratising technology”, the Prime Minister added.

According to the Newsweek report, in 2021, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani identified that data centres would create “infinite energy demand”, pinpointing clean energy as the primary bottleneck.

“If India’s AI revolution is a skyscraper, we are building its foundation,” according to Gautam Adani.

In 2022, Adani Green Energy committed over $70 billion to clean energy, planning “energy-to-compute” corridors.

“The strategy operationalized in 2023 with the AdaniConneX joint venture, targeting 1 GW of data-centre capacity, and the launch of Adani AI Labs,” said the report.

In 2024, the acquisition of Coredge laid the groundwork for a sovereign cloud.

By 2025, this culminated in the $15 billion Adani-Google AI Data-Centre Campus.

“Over four years, the Adani Group committed $70 billion to renewable energy, solar, wind, and energy storage. Those assets now power what Adani calls ‘the infrastructure of intelligence,’” the report mentioned.

The Adani Group has designed an “energy-to-compute” ecosystem, linking green energy generation, fibre connectivity, ports, data centres, and sovereign cloud networks.

“The Visakhapatnam project is its boldest expression,” said the report.

On the other hand, India’s AI market is expanding — from $1 billion in 2024 to an estimated $8 billion by 2030, growing at more than 40 per cent (year-on-year). India already produces more than 8 exabytes of data every day, and that number is growing fast.

The Google AI hub in Visakhapatnam will include a purpose-built data centre campus, adding gigawatt-scale compute capacity to help meet demand for digital services across India and around the world. Developed with leading partners, AdaniConneX and Airtel, it will be built with the same cutting-edge infrastructure that powers Google products like Search, Workspace, and YouTube.

–IANS

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