Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh intensified its bid to position itself as a major Asian hub for artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing and digital services, as IT and HRD Minister Nara Lokesh held a series of meetings with top US technology leaders, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Thomas Kurian, senior executives from Intel, NVIDIA, Adobe and Zoom Video Communications, during his Silicon Valley visit.

At Google headquarters, Lokesh thanked its Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai for the company’s planned $15 billion AI datacenter investment in Visakhapatnam, the largest foreign direct investment announced by the company outside the United States. Discussions focused on project timelines, cloud-region expansion and the development of a server-manufacturing ecosystem through suppliers such as Wistron. Lokesh also sought Google’s participation in Andhra Pradesh’s planned Drone City initiative, including assembly and calibration facilities for ‘Wing’ drones, currently manufactured through Foxconn in Chennai. Pichai said the company would evaluate the state’s proposals after internal review.

In Santa Clara, Lokesh met Intel IT CTO Sesha Krishnapura, pressing the case for an ATMP plant and an ‘Intel–Amaravati AI Research Center’ linked to academic institutions such as IIIT Sri City and IIT Tirupati. He proposed Intel-supported HPC clusters for health, agriculture and climate modelling, and urged the chipmaker to introduce training pipelines, including ‘AI for Youth’ and Digital Readiness programmes, into engineering and polytechnic curricula across the State.

NVIDIA, whose largest R&D base outside the US is in Bengaluru, held discussions with Lokesh on supporting Andhra Pradesh’s emerging smart-manufacturing and AI-skills ecosystem. Lokesh sought collaboration on digital-twin pilot factories using NVIDIA Omniverse and Isaac Sim, linkages to the company’s $850 million India deep-tech fund, and acceleration of a previously signed MoU with the state. Raj Mir Puri, Vice President for Enterprise and Cloud Sales, said a high-level team would examine the proposals. Lokesh also met Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen, pitching a Global Capability Center in Visakhapatnam and seeking investment in the state’s expanding med-tech and pharmaceutical zones, including the Andhra Med Tech Zone. Zoom Executives Velchami Shankaralingam and Aparna Bawa were urged to set up an engineering centre in Amaravati or Visakhapatnam and support virtual-learning and telemedicine infrastructure across rural districts.

Speaking at a Bay Area Council forum, Lokesh said Andhra Pradesh aims to scale its $180-billion economy to $2.4 trillion, driven by a cluster-based strategy across 20 high-growth sectors. Foundation work for the Google data centre will begin in March 2026, he said, adding that the state intends to remain at the forefront of India’s AI transformation with “an AI expert in every family.”