N Chandrababu Naidu

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is leading the state’s push to become a national hub for artificial intelligence, big data, and advanced industries. Drawing parallels with his earlier role in developing Hyderabad into a global IT destination, he is now focused on AI-led transformation.

“I visualised the potential of IT in the 1990s. I told Bill Gates to come to Hyderabad. It was IT then, it is AI now,” he has said. His government launched an initiative called ‘AI for Andhra Pradesh, Powered by Google’, seeking to incorporate AI into agriculture, healthcare, skill development, and sustainability, with Amaravati being developed as an AI-centred metropolis.

On April 28, he laid the foundation stone for Google’s AI Data Centre in Visakhapatnam, a $15 billion investment and one of India’s largest-ever FDIs, with a capacity of 1 Gigawatt, positioning Visakhapatnam as a major AI gateway for Asia.

He envisions building a multi-gigawatt digital hub with a total capacity of 6.5 gigawatts across the state. His ‘Speed of Doing Business’ policy has been cited as a key enabler of these investments. Under his Swarn Andhra 2047 vision, AI is positioned as the central accelerator of the state's development alongside steel, ports, and renewable energy.