Andhra Pradesh is set to see another major AI boost, months after Google announced its AI data centre investment. This time, Reliance Industries has announced setting up a 1 GW AI-focused data centre in the south Indian state. The upcoming Reliance facility will be built as a modular unit equipped with graphic processing units, tensor processing units and other AI processors, according to ET. It is being designed as a counterpart to the company’s data centre in Jamnagar. Andhra Pradesh has been working to position itself as a large data centre hub, and had recently signed an agreement with Google. In an earlier conversation with ET, state IT and electronics minister Nara Lokesh had said the government is aiming for a total of 6 GW in data centre capacity. So far, Andhra Pradesh has closed deals for 1 GW with Google and 500 MW with Sify. The addition of Reliance Industries’ proposal moves the state closer to its target. Sources told the agency that the company also plans to set up a 6 GW solar power project to supply energy for the new data centre. Reliance Industries executive director PMS Prasad is scheduled to sign an MoU with chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday. The agreement will also include the company’s greenfield integrated food park planned at Kurnool across 170 acres. The park will manufacture beverages, packaged drinking water, chocolates, snacks and atta, a plan Naidu reaffirmed in an interview to ET, earlier. The announcements coincide with the CII Partnership Summit being held in the state, during which the government expects to formalise over 400 MoUs with major companies. These include proposed investments from Brookfield (Rs 1.08 lakh crore), ReNew (Rs 82,000 crore), SAEL Industries (Rs 22,000 crore) and Hero Future Energies (Rs 15,000 crore), to be signed across Friday and Saturday. Responding to concerns about agreements not materialising into real projects, Naidu said, “These MoUs are not on paper. Each investment is genuine and will come into the state within the next three and a half to four years.” He added, “I am happy to share that over the last 16 months, my cabinet has cleared investments of up to Rs 9 lakh crore. Over the next two days, we will be signing MoUs for another Rs 9-10 lakh crore. These are all implementable. We will be able to get Rs 20 lakh crore of investments grounded and generate 20 lakh jobs.”
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