🌐 Google’s $6 Billion AI Data Center in Visakhapatnam: A Strategic Leap for India

Google is making its largest-ever data center investment in Asia by setting up a 1-gigawatt hyperscale facility in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, with a total outlay of $6 billion.

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🏗️ Project Overview

- Location: Port city of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

- Capacity: 1 GW (gigawatt) — largest in Asia by both scale and investment

- Investment: $6 billion total

- $2 billion earmarked for renewable energy infrastructure to power the facility

- Timeline: Formal announcement expected in October 2025

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🔋 Energy & Sustainability

- Andhra Pradesh anticipates 10 GW of power demand from data centers over the next five years

- Majority of this will be green energy, though some coal-based power will be used to ensure reliability

- Google’s $2 billion renewable component aligns with its global sustainability goals

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🌐 Connectivity Infrastructure

- The state is building three cable landing stations in Visakhapatnam to support high-speed global data exchange

- These will double Mumbai’s current cable network capacity
- This positions Visakhapatnam as a future digital gateway for India

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📈 Strategic Context

- This is Google’s first hyperscale data center investment in India

- Part of a broader $75 billion global data center expansion by Alphabet in 2025

- Complements Google Cloud’s existing regions in Mumbai (2017) and Delhi (2021)

- Supports India’s digitalization push, echoing Google’s earlier $10 billion commitment to the country

The Trump administration in April exempted smartphones, computers, and other electronics from reciprocal tariffs, in a major reprieve to companies such as Apple and Nvidia Corp. Most of these electronic devices aren’t made in the US.

India currently accounts for more than a fifth of global iPhone production and has already surpassed China to become the top supplier of the device to the US market.

- Bloomberg

I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI, because you can let an AI see what you see throughout the day, hear what you hear, talk to you

-Zuck

Study Mode in ChatGPT

In a time where Android 16 has been gracing our phones and is in a stable release state, they're launching a phone with.... Android 14

They are promising 2+4 OS and 4 years of security updates, but let's be real, they should advertise just 2 years of security patches, because those 2 OS updates are gone in just catching up to the time and getting Mr Lei back into the present.

🇮🇳 India’s Semiconductor Design Push: 23 Projects Sanctioned under DLI Scheme

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has sanctioned 23 chip-design projects under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, marking a major milestone in India’s semiconductor journey.

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🧩 About the DLI Scheme

- Launched: December 2021

- Part of: ₹76,000 crore Semicon India Programme

- Objective: Support domestic startups, MSMEs, and academic institutions in semiconductor design

- Total Outlay: ₹1,000 crore

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💰 Incentives Offered

Product Design Linked Incentive : Up to 50% of eligible costs, capped at ₹15 crore per application

Deployment Linked Incentive : 4–6% of net sales turnover over 5 years, capped at ₹30 crore |

Design Infrastructure Support : Access to EDA tools and IP cores for prototyping and development

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🏗️ Progress So Far

- 278 academic institutions and 72 startups granted access to advanced Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools

- 23 projects sanctioned for chip design in areas like:

- Surveillance cameras
- Energy meters
- Networking solutions
- Microprocessor IPs

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🚀 Key Outcomes

- 10 companies secured venture capital funding to scale up designs

- 6 firms completed prototype tape-outs at global semiconductor foundries

- 20 chip designs from 17 institutions successfully fabricated at Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Mohali

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📊 Financial Snapshot

- Total sanctioned outlay: ₹803.08 crore (includes cost of EDA tools)

- Fund disbursement: Linked to milestone-based development and deployment stages

without a new major release Samsung still managed an 8% market share increase in the US for Q2 2025

Samsung said that while smartphone shipments were lower than in Q1

Revenue and profit still grew year-on-year
strong sales of the Galaxy S25 series, Galaxy A series, and Galaxy tablets.

Realme is planning to make 2 separate product lineups for Ecom partners, apart from regular number series

'P' series on Flipkart, 'N' for Amazon

Similar approach as Samsung with Galaxy M and Galaxy F series