Reliance pledges $17B Visakhapatnam cluster

Reliance Industries is planning a ₹1.6 lakh crore, or roughly $17 billion, data-centre cluster in Visakhapatnam that would be the biggest in India. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) The project is designed for 1.5 gigawatts of capacity and a captive solar-and-battery system, according to people familiar with the plan cited by The Economic Times. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (enterpriseai.economictimes.indiatimes.com) The cluster is slated for land near the upcoming Bhogapuram airport outside Visakhapatnam. Reports say Reliance has sought 935 acres, with 300 acres for the first phase and 635 acres for the second. (newindianexpress.com) (outlookbusiness.com) The first phase is expected to be a 500-megawatt facility at Polipalli village, with commercial operations targeted for October 2028. Full buildout has been reported for 2030. (moneycontrol.com) (newindianexpress.com) A data centre is a warehouse for computing power: rows of servers that store data, run cloud software, and train artificial-intelligence models. Bigger power capacity usually means more chips, more cooling, and more ability to handle heavy AI workloads. (blog.google) (livemint.com) Visakhapatnam has turned into a focal point because Andhra Pradesh has been offering incentives under its Data Centre Policy 4.0 and pitching the coast as a base for power, land, and subsea-cable connectivity. (livemint.com) The immediate comparison is Google. In October 2025, Google said it would invest about $15 billion over five years in its first India AI hub in Visakhapatnam, with 1 gigawatt of capacity. (blog.google) (pib.gov.in) If Reliance completes the 1.5-gigawatt plan, it would overtake that Google project on size and deepen Andhra Pradesh’s push to assemble multiple gigawatts of AI and cloud infrastructure in one corridor. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (outlookbusiness.com) The reporting so far describes the Reliance investment as a plan cleared through state channels rather than a detailed public project rollout from the company. That leaves the next milestones as land allocation, formal project documents, and construction timelines. (newindianexpress.com) (economictimes.indiatimes.com) For now, the headline number is simple: Reliance is lining up a 1.5-gigawatt bet on Vizag, and Andhra Pradesh wants that coast to become India’s densest AI-computing zone. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (livemint.com)