AP asks Google Cloud CEO to set up data centre in Vizag

Andhra Pradesh has invited Google to establish a data centre in Visakhapatnam.

IT, Electronics & HRD Minister Nara Lokesh, currently in the United States to woo investors, said AP is getting transformed into a cloud infrastructure hub with focus on setting up data centres in Visakhapatnam.

Lokesh asked the Google Cloud to establish its data centre in the port city. As part of his mission to attract investments he visited the Google campus in San Francisco where he had a prolonged meeting with the CEO of Google Cloud Thomas Kurian, its global networking vice-president Bikas Koley, vice-president of its business applications Rao Surapuneni, and vice-president of Google Maps Chandu Thota.

During meeting, Lokesh asked all these top echelons of Google to consider setting up of a data centre in Visakhapatnam under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

"Under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, the State Government is implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based e-governance and is implementing programmes like smart city. Also, Andhra Pradesh is the right place for investments," Lokesh told the Google top bosses and asked them to consider providing services like AI tools and enterprise solutions to help digitalise government services for better public services.

The Minister also sought the cooperation of Google with the State Government in real time management, disaster response and urban planning besides interlinking the smart cities with Google Maps which are part of geospatial services.

He also wanted Google to hold AI-based training classes to the youth on digital education and for their skill development.

Responding to Lokesh's proposals, the Google top echelons said that they will soon take a decision after holding discussions with their colleagues. They said that their organisation got global recognition in online services like cloud-computing and digital advertising.