Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday discussed with Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal the strengthening of the state’s digital infrastructure and enhancing connectivity. Sunil Bharti Mittal called on the Chief Minister at the latter’s official residence here.
The Chief Minister posted on ‘X’ that he was delighted to meet Sunil Bharti Mittal. “We had a productive discussion on strengthening Andhra Pradesh's digital infrastructure and enhancing connectivity for our people. Our conversation focused on expanding last-mile internet and mobile tower connectivity, promoting investments in data centres and an undersea internet cable landing station, and further improving the ease of doing business for mobile service operators in our state,” said the Chief Minister.
The details of the talks between the Chief Minister and Sunil Bharti Mittal are not known. An official release from the state government is expected later. Airtel Nxtra, the date centre subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, is one of the partners in the Google AI Data Centre coming up in Visakhapatnam.
The project, backed by an investment of around $15 billion, will include gigawatt-scale data centre operations powered by clean energy and supported by a strong subsea network. The data centre, the foundation stone for which was laid in April, will be developed across nearly 600 acres with a total capacity of 1 Gigawatt.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, along with Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, had laid the foundation stone for the Google Cloud India AI Hub on April 28. Chandrababu Naidu had urged Google and its partners in the project, AdaniConneX and Airtel Nxtra, to complete the project for inauguration by September 2028.
The Chief Minister had said that the government would leverage the Google AI Data Centre to enhance the "Speed of Governance" that the government is committed to delivering.