Can India’s Electricity Keep Up With India’s AI Ambitions?

When Google announced a $15 billion investment to establish a large-scale AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, on October 14, it marked not just the company’s largest AI project outside the US, but also a significant milestone for India’s national AI ambitions. The facility will include the country’s first gigawatt-scale data centre campus dedicated to AI, complete with subsea cable gateways and renewable energy infrastructure.

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw hailed the investment as a boost for the IndiaAI Mission, which aims to provide shared compute infrastructure for sovereign AI development. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu called it a “new chapter in India’s digital transformation journey”, emphasising the potential economic and technological impact.

Yet, the project also highlights one of the most pressing challenges of AI: energy consumption. Modern AI models don’t just run on code; they consume megawatts of electricity. Large-scale AI training can require as much energy as a small town uses in a day, and operating such facilities continuously can put a substantial load on the grid. India’s national electricity demand is already rising, and adding gigawatt-scale AI hubs will require careful planning to avoid overburdening existing infrastructure.

Google's plan calls for renewable power integration as one method of offsetting its carbon footprint, but to meet AI's energy demands at scale, it may need collaboration with local utilities, smart grid management systems and energy storage solutions.

India is taking serious steps toward becoming an AI hub, but to realise this ambition will require not only talent and technology but also a sufficient and sustainable power supply for an AI computing revolution. Over the coming years we will test whether India's grid can keep pace with next-gen computing.