Lokesh credits CM for India’s largest ever FDI from Google

Amaravati: Minister for Education, IT and Electronics Nara Lokesh on Wednesday said the state’s recent wave of mega-investments, overarched by Google’s planned data center in Visakhapatnam, would not have been possible without the vision and leadership of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Speaking to reporters at his Undavalli residence, Lokesh credited coordinated action between the state and the Centre, targeted policy amendments, and hands-on diplomacy for attracting what he called “the single largest FDI in India’s history” in the form of Google’s investment.

He said Google plans to invest about $15 billion over five years and that the company’s Visakhapatnam data center will be Google’s largest outside the United States.

Lokesh said the project will have a wide industrial ripple effects — from cable landing stations and renewable-energy projects to AI-related ancillary firms — and estimated a 25-fold economic impact, generating approximately 1,88,000 (188,000) direct and indirect jobs and contributing around Rs 48,000 crore to the local economy over five years.

The IT Minister highlighted previous schemes that had turned Anantapur into a mobility valley with the advent of Kia and said cluster-based, vertical, and horizontal integration would be used to develop 100-km econo-zones.

Lokesh set an ambitious employment target of 500,000 jobs in the IT sector alone and continued weekly announcements of new projects. He said TCS and Cognizant campuses will begin operations in Visakhapatnam in the coming months.

The Minister outlined a vision for a $1-trillion Greater Visakha economic corridor, backed by an integrated plan for airports, rail, and roads. He announced a goal to develop six-gigawatt data center capacity in and around Visakhapatnam and recounted that a recent ground-breaking event took place for a 500 MW facility by a private firm.

Lokesh said the state will offer capital subsidies and electricity tariff incentives for the Google project in accordance with the policy, and that the state had already provided concessional land arrangements to IT firms such as TCS and Cognizant.

To ensure local youth benefit, Lokesh said the state has directed higher education authorities to partner with Google, TCS and Cognizant on AI skill training.

He also defended the government’s use of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to complete medical colleges faster — saying PPP is aimed at expanding seats and helping economically disadvantaged students, not selling public assets.

Responding to criticism from rivals, Lokesh argued that investor interest during the previous regime was weak and that the current government’s “speed of doing” and reforms on the front produced results. He invoked past successes such as Hyderabad’s rise under Naidu’s leadership and urged citizens to distinguish between visionary leadership and what he called “destructive” politics.

He appealed to the public to support the government’s mission to make Andhra Pradesh number one across sectors.

Lokesh said additional “key announcements” are expected in November. He asserted that the Google deal represents a win for India as a whole, not just for Andhra Pradesh.

When it was brought to his attention that a report published in ‘The Washington Post’ stated that many towns and cities in the United States of America are against such data centres in their towns and the local councils had even passed resolutions banning them forever; Lokesh said that the US towns were content, and they do not want any development.

Referring to the usage of excess water and energy by the data centres, he said that water would be supplied only once, and it would be recycled. He brushed off the criticism over use of excess power, saying it would be “no problem”.