Union Minister for Railways and Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw, along with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, laid the foundation stone of the Google Cloud India AI Hub in Visakhapatnam today.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, the Union Minister said the country is moving into large-scale electronics manufacturing, semiconductor production, advanced chip design, and artificial intelligence technologies. He said India is rapidly emerging as a trusted global electronics manufacturing partner under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India vision. He added that India had earlier missed opportunities in electronics manufacturing, semiconductor production, and hardware development, however, focused policy support and strong political leadership have significantly transformed the sector in recent years. He noted that smartphones have now become India’s single largest exported product, reflecting the country’s growing strength in electronics manufacturing and global supply chains.
The Minister said India is capable of manufacturing modules, sub-modules, finished products, components, servers, and advanced electronic equipment with quality and competitive costs. Mr Vaishnaw appealed to technology companies, including Google, to manufacture servers, GPU systems, and memory chips in India to support the rapidly expanding data centre ecosystem. Highlighting the country’s progress in semiconductors, he said commercial production has already begun at two semiconductor plants under India’s Semiconductor Mission. He also called for joint research initiatives to improve power efficiency and reduce water consumption in future technology infrastructure projects under the India AI Mission.
Mr Vaishnaw described Visakhapatnam as the country’s emerging artificial intelligence destination and said the city would soon be widely known as “AI Patnam.” He said the AI Hub would support major advancements in education, healthcare, aerospace, logistics, and agriculture through advanced artificial intelligence applications. He added that the infrastructure would strengthen digital connectivity between India, Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and the United States.
K. Ram Mohan Naidu, Ministers of State Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar and B. Srinivasa Varma, state ministers, representatives from Google, Adani Group, and Bharti Airtel, as well as public representatives and industry leaders, were present on the occasion.
