Google's $15 bn AI hub in Vizag driven by rising India demand: exec

Google Cloud's $15 billion AI investment in Visakhapatnam aims to meet rising local demand for sovereign data and AI solutions, says global revenue head Matt Renner, calling India a key growth market

Google expects an increase in demand from customers with the setting up of its $15 billion artificial intelligence (AI) data hub in Visakhapatnam, said Matt Renner, president of global revenue at Google Cloud.

 

“There is a very progressive set of demands from companies in India, especially in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) spaces, when it comes to AI. We are seeing very broad and diverse demand from customers in India and trying to meet that with our infrastructure,” Renner said during a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

 

Sovereign in-country investments, such as the one made by Google in Visakhapatnam, help the company assure its customers that their data will remain safe and within the geographical boundaries of their country, Renner said.

 

Google, he said, had “very advanced sovereign solutions” to meet any regulatory demands that Google Cloud’s customers could have.

 

In October this year, Google announced a $15 billion investment over the next five years to establish an AI data hub in Visakhapatnam.

 

The AI hub will house a “purpose-built data centre campus” to help meet the demand for rising digital services across India and the globe, Google had then said for its largest investment in India to date.

 

“When operational, the new data centre campus will join Google’s network of existing AI data centres that spans 12 countries. It will benefit from technology developed by Google’s R&D centres in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. This includes the design and development of crucial software and hardware innovations,” Google had said.

 

During the July-September period, Google Cloud reported revenue of $15.2 billion, a 34 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase, driven largely by new AI revenue. The company also launched Gemini Enterprise recently, in which 700 companies have purchased nearly two million seats till date, it said.