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Google Just Bet $15 Billion That India Is the Future of AI

Google announced yesterday it's dropping $15 billion over five years to build its largest AI data center outside the US—not in Singapore, not in Ireland, but in Visakhapatnam, India.

Let that sink in. Google's biggest non-American AI facility isn't going somewhere with perfect infrastructure and zero bureaucracy. It's going to a coastal city most Americans couldn't find on a map.

The Numbers

Starting capacity: 1 gigawatt. For context, that's enough power to run a small city. Plans call for scaling to 6 gigawatts—more than many countries use for their entire tech sectors.

Expected jobs: 188,000. That's not a typo.

The Indian data center market is projected to hit $100 billion by 2027. Two years ago, most analysts would've laughed at that number.

Why India, Why Now

Here's the thing everyone's missing: India has 900 million internet users. That's nearly triple the entire US population, and most of them came online in the last decade. They're not using AI tools built for American workflows or European data regulations—they need their own infrastructure.

Google's not being charitable here. They're staking territory before someone else does.

The site selection wasn't random either. Andhra Pradesh's government actually solved the problems that typically kill these deals—water access, power reliability, and the absolute nightmare of Indian data taxation. Nara Lokesh, a state official, personally shepherded this through bureaucratic hell to make it happen.

What This Really Means

The global AI race just shifted east. While American companies fight over Northern Virginia real estate and European regulators argue about compliance frameworks, India's building the actual infrastructure to process the developing world's AI workloads.

China's already way ahead on this. India's playing catch-up, but with American companies' money and technology. It's a weird geopolitical triangle that somehow works for everyone—except maybe the countries getting left behind.

The Uncomfortable Truth

This investment says something quiet but important: Google thinks India's going to generate more AI value than most of Europe combined. They're not building this for 188,000 Indian employees to service American customers. They're building it because India's about to become one of the largest AI markets on Earth.

We're watching the center of gravity shift in real-time. Tech's next chapter isn't being written in Silicon Valley—it's being compiled in Visakhapatnam.

And if you're just hearing about this city for the first time? You're already behind.