Andhra Pradesh is set to develop a Data City, housing data centres and artificial intelligence hubs, near Visakhapatnam.

Working on Telugu Desam Party's election promise of providing 20 lakh jobs in five years, the state government will be developing the Data City in Madhurawada near Visakhapatnam. The city is being planned on the pattern of Hyderabad's Hitec City. Spread across 500 acres of land, Data City is planned as a hub for all IT sector companies offering different solutions. The state government has already initiated land acquisition for this purpose. According to government sources, Google will be assigned 80 acres of land for a data centre. The company has signed a MoU with Andhra government but details have not been divulged. Tata Consultancy Services will be taking up 30 acres for their expansion.

If Hyderabad was the brainchild of united Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Data City is his son and state IT minister Nara Lokesh's idea. At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Lokesh held discussions with Temasek Holdings to set up data centres and data centre parks in Visakhapatnam. Lokesh also discussed the idea of Data City with Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar for the venture. Speaking to ET, Lokesh said, "At Davos, we have seen tremendous interest from IT companies, data centres, AI and deep tech firms to enter Andhra Pradesh. We are now consolidating all these opportunities to locate them near Vizag. This will emerge as the hub for tech firms in India."

Data City will follow the same Hitec City model - wherein one big company was persuaded to set up shop and others followed.

In case of Hyderabad's Hitec City, Bill Gates' Microsoft was the harbinger and the other companies followed. According to sources, Google could be that anchor for Lokesh's Data City.

Once the companies are tied up, the government could plan other tourist attractions around Data City. A cash-strapped Andhra Pradesh is trying to attract investments to give a fillip to its economy and fund its Super Six election promises.

After the bifurcation of the state, Telangana had inherited Hyderabad, the main revenue generating city of the entire state. Following this jolt, Andhra Pradesh government under Naidu has stressed on decentralization of development.