For Pichai and Kurian, factors to opt for Andhra Pradesh were obvious

K Raveendran

When Google announced that Visakhapatnam would be home to its $15 billion project to build the company’s first artificial intelligence hub in India, the news landed like a thunderclap across the southern states. For Andhra Pradesh, it was nothing short of a jackpot — a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rewrite the state’s economic and technological future. But elsewhere, the announcement was received with clenched teeth and forced smiles. The jubilation in Visakhapatnam was matched by muted agony in Chennai, Bengaluru, and Thiruvananthapuram — each of which had been quietly confident that they, not a coastal city known more for its beaches than its bandwidth, would be Google’s chosen one.

The symbolism

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