New Delhi, Oct. 15 -- Tech giant Google on Tuesday announced a $15 billion investment to build India's first artificial intelligence hub in Visakhapatnam - its largest facility outside the US. The hub will feature a gigawatt-scale data centre built in partnership with Adani Group's AdaniConneX and Airtel, along with a new international subsea cable landing to boost India's internet speed and global connectivity, the company said. "It is part of a global network of AI centres in 12 different countries, but it is the largest one that we will be building anywhere in the world outside of the US," Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian said at the 'Bharat AI Shakti' event in New Delhi, where the formal memorandum of understanding was signed with the Andhra Pradesh government. The data centre will scale to multiple gigawatts in future, Kurian added, noting that Google has been operating in India for 21 years with over 14,000 employees. The investment, expected to be realised over five years, represents a significant shift in India's technology landscape that will enable the country to host critical AI computing infrastructure domestically rather than relying on data centres abroad. This on-shoring could prove crucial for data sovereignty, reduce latency for Indian users and businesses, and position the country as a regional hub for AI services across South and Southeast Asia. The launch event saw attendance from Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the state's IT minister Nara Lokesh, and minister of state for communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani. AP CM Naidu drew parallels between India's technology journey from building Hyderabad's HITEC City in the late 1990s - when he brought Microsoft to the city - to now hosting AI hubs. "With digital connectivity, data centres and AI - real-time data collection and integration of historical data and global knowledge - it will be a deadly combination." Karan Bajwa, president of Google Cloud for the Asia-Pacific region, said the company aims to be net zero by 2030 and is already carbon neutral. "A lot of data centres that we are building are with clean energy. That is the reason we decide on locations and places and countries," he said....