Google said Tuesday it will invest $15 billion in India over the next five years, as it announced a giant data centre and artificial intelligence base in the country.”It is the largest AI hub that we are investing in anywhere outside of the US,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said at a ceremony in New Delhi.Demand for AI tools and solutions is surging among businesses and individuals in India, which is projected to have more than 900 million internet users by year’s end.Kurian announced “capital investment of $15 billion” over the five years and a “gigawatt-scale AI hub in Visakhapatnam”, a port city in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.Google plans for the centre to scale to multiple gigawatts, he added, comparing the project to “a digital backbone connecting different parts of India together”.Globally, data centres are an area of phenomenal growth, fuelled by the need to store massive amounts of digital data, and to train and run energy-intensive AI tools.Google chief Sundar Pichai said on X that he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the “landmark development”.”This hub combines gigawatt-scale compute capacity, a new international subsea gateway, and large-scale energy infrastructure,” he wrote.”Through it we will bring our industry-leading technology to enterprises and users in India, accelerating AI innovation and driving growth across the country.”- ‘Data is the new oil’ -India’s Information Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, thanked Google for the investment.”This digital infrastructure will go a long way in meeting the goals of our India AI vision,” he said.Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu called it a “very happy day”. The state’s Technology Minister Nara Lokesh said on X that the deal followed “a year of intense discussions and relentless effort”.Lokesh, speaking at the announcement, said that “data is the new oil and data centres are the new refineries”.”This is about India playing an important role on the global landscape,” he added.Recently top American AI firms looking to court users in the world’s fifth-largest economy have made a flurry of announcements about expanding into the country.This month US startup Anthropic said it plans to open an office in India next year, with its chief executive Dario Amodei meeting Prime Minister Modi.Modi, in a post on X, told Amodei that “India’s vibrant tech ecosystem and talented youth are driving AI innovation”, adding that he wanted to “harness AI for growth”.OpenAI has said it will open an India office later this year, with its chief Sam Altman noting that ChatGPT usage in the country had grown fourfold over the past year.AI firm Perplexity also announced a major partnership in July with Indian telecom giant Airtel, offering the company’s 360 million customers a free one-year Perplexity Pro subscription.

Shubman Gill on Tuesday won his first Test series since becoming India captain as his side beat the West Indies by seven wickets at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium for a 2-0 sweep.Chasing 121 for victory in the second Test, India resumed on day five at 63-1 and reached their target in the first session with KL Rahul unbeaten on 58.West Indies captain Roston Chase struck twice with his off-spin to send back Sai Sudharsan for 39 and Gill, who made 13.Rahul hit the winning four as India reached 124-3 after a spirited fightback from the West Indies, who made 390 in their second innings with centuries from John Campbell and Shai Hope after being forced to follow on.India are a team in transition under 26-year-old Gill, after the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.They won the opening Test by an innings and 140 runs after a thrilling 2-2 draw in their five-Test series in England from June to August, Gill’s first in charge.”It’s a really big honour and I would say I’m getting used to it,” Gill said at the post-match presentation. “Managing all the players and leading this team is a great honour.”India head coach Gautam Gambhir said the young leader was marching on after having passed his “toughest test as a Test captain” in England.”No one has done him a favour by appointing him the Test and one-day captain,” the former batsman told reporters. “I think he deserves every bit of it. I think he’s worked hard, and he ticks all the boxes.”Gill has been in the form of his life after being named Test captain in May, scoring 754 runs in the five England Tests and then a half-century and a hundred in the two West Indies matches.- West Indies hope -India’s left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav’s match haul of eight wickets, including 5-82 in the first West Indies innings, earned him the player of the match accolade.Kuldeep claimed 12 wickets in the series and pace bowler Mohammed Siraj took 10 to be India’s leading wicket-taker this year with 37 wickets in eight matches.India’s batsmen set up the victory as Yashasvi Jaiswal top-scored with 175 in India’s mammoth first-innings total of 518-5 declared. Gill made an unbeaten 129.The West Indies have endured years of decline and, despite the late fight shown in Delhi, suffered their second successive Test sweep after a 3-0 home series defeat to Australia.There were some positives to take from the series. Left-handed opener Campbell made 115 and Hope 103 in a 177-run stand for the third wicket on Monday as India’s bowlers tired on a slow pitch offering little help.”It’s just for us to use this last Test match as a stepping stone and a confidence booster going into the upcoming series,” Chase said of West Indies’ next tour, to New Zealand in November. “We just have to keep improving as much as we can from here.”India enforced the follow-on after they bowled out the West Indies for 248, a deficit of 270 from the hosts’ first innings. The visitors sprung into life in their second innings through Campbell and Hope, with Justin Greaves and Jayden Seales also offering tail-end resistance.Greaves with an unbeaten 50 and Seales, 32, put on 79 runs for the final wicket to frustrate India and force play into the fifth day.