Nara Lokesh pitches Vizag to Google for setting up data centre

Andhra Pradesh’s IT and Electronics Minister Nara Lokesh has pitched port city of Vizag in his state for setting up a data centre to Google Cloud CEO, saying the new government in the state has taken various initiatives for supporting industry that will help it transform into a cloud infrastructure hub.

Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

The state is focused on setting up data centres in Visakhapatnam and the minister invited Google Cloud to establish its data centre in the port city.

As part of his mission to attract investments during his ongoing visit to the United States, Lokesh visited the Google campus in San Francisco where he met Google Cloud chief executive 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.

The minister 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 the Chief Minister 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,” he told 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.

Lokesh 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 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.