Google India head Preeti Lobana

“Artificial intelligence gives us a tool to stay one step ahead,” said Preeti Lobana, country manager, Google India. “This is about transforming lives, not just balance sheets.”

On October 14, Google announced a $15 billion investment to set up a data center and international subsea gateway in Visakhapatnam and connect the coastal city to various global networks. The facility, which is part of Andhra Pradesh’s target to reach 6 GW data center capacity by 2029, will be completely powered by green energy, Lobana said.

“We’ve been talking for a while We have had a good 13 months with Chandrababu Naidu and Nara Lokesh.” Lobana said, “It is important for us to work with the ecosystem and do local work.” Naidu is the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the state’s top executive, and Lokesh is the state’s minister of human resource development and IT, electronics, communications.

Lobana said Google is now focused on delivering AI capabilities, including its lightweight open source family Gemma. LLMs—to local businesses and governments, as well as computing capacity and cloud credits (tokens for free access to the company’s cloud services).

Even as competition increases between Indian and global majors, Lobana emphasized that Google remains ahead in its field. Efforts to partner with India’s central and local governments on AI goals and expanding AI infrastructure.

“Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, and when the ChatGPT moment happened two or three years ago, it was on everyone’s mind,” Lobana said. “But Sundar [Pichai] I became CEO of Google in 2015 and joined Google in 2016. At that time, everyone said that we were a mobile-first company and that we were an artificial intelligence-first company.”

Lobana said Google India currently has 13,000 employees, including those involved in core engineering projects such as artificial intelligence research lab Google DeepMind, but did not share details.

Competition is heating up

Competition to invest in data centers and AI computing is intensifying in India. Currently, Tata Group, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Adani Group have pledged $28 billion worth of building data centres, surpassing Big Tech giants Google Microsoft and Amazon, which have pledged $25 billion so far. Mint reported earlier this month.

ChatGPT owner OpenAI has also started expanding its operations in India. This year, it set up an office in New Delhi and has already started hiring solutions engineers, sales staff and other staff. CEO Sam Altman visited India in February and launched ChatGPT Go, a mid-range subscription plan, in India in August. ₹399/month. Earlier this month, the company announced free one-year subscriptions to Indian users.

further, Bloomberg In August, it was reported that the company was in talks to open a 1GW data center in the country.

But Lobana was not impressed. “There are others that have the models or the chips. We’re full stack,” he said, likening ongoing investments in expanding data centers to the laying out of power grids and railway systems two centuries ago.

“We think a lot of this infrastructure investment is just laying the groundwork, because as usage increases, computing becomes very critical,” Lobana said, adding that seven of Google’s products have more than 2 billion users and 15 products have half a billion users each.

Google is focused on investing in computing capacity to power its most used consumer products—Search, Maps, and increasingly. Gemini is in its largest market by user base.

Lobana said the company is also keen on continuing to invest in local AI startups as well as offering them mentorship and coaching under the Startup Center of the ministry of electronics and information technology. “We have some risks [in Indian AI startups]. We have a fund for this here and a lot of work is being done,” Lobana said.

In September 2025, Google announced a list of 20 AI startups for its “AI First” accelerator program, ranging from agency AI, voice and marketing tools, to healthcare technology.

The market is still evolving

Despite Google’s enthusiasm and high-decibel investment announcements, India’s data centers business has been slow on uptake.

“India produces 20% of global data but has only 5.5% of global DC capacity – and slower-than-desired capacity additions in the past have exacerbated the demand-supply mismatch and led to a cyclical boom in DC capacity expansion,” analysts at brokerage firm JM Financial said in a detailed report in March. he wrote. “A large internet user base creating troves of data, the government’s data localization drive, and artificial intelligence are some of the structural tailwinds.”

Additionally, analysts said much of the ongoing expansion in data centers is to meet domestic demand, but the country’s data center business could increase if it becomes a connectivity hub for South Asia and the Middle East.

“The deployment of more subsea cable landings, lower capex/MW, lower operating costs (utilities, manpower, etc.) and improved cross-border connectivity due to its strategic location (between the Middle East and South East Asia) give India an advantage. Lower rack density even for AI workloads, as promised by DeepSeek, can further scale up in India’s favour,” the report said.