Editorial: Google’s diplomatic AI balancing act

The announcement of a big-ticket investment in India, that too to set up an Artificial Intelligence hub, by Google comes at a time when India has been lobbying to insulate US foreign investments from President Donald Trump’s disruptive and manipulative tactics using tariffs and visa regulations. Cognizant of this, Google did some deft tightrope walking in its communications. The tech giant made it a point to highlight how this “initiative creates substantial economic and societal opportunities for both India and the United States”. It was not just a rhetorical assertion, but actually backed by a commissioned study, which said that the AI hub would contribute $15 billion (USD) over five years to American GDP through new economic activity arising out of cloud and AI adoption and use of American talent and resources. It is a victory of sorts for Trump. Google had to show how the US would benefit from its foreign ventures.

If Google is going to make statements to please the US President, then it is not surprising that it will do the same for the Indian Prime Minister as well, with a reference to his pet project, Viksit Bharat. One cannot grudge Google for these tactical moves due to the prevalent geopolitical scenario, as well as the unique, skewed idiosyncratic personalities of Trump and Modi. Google’s approximately $15 billion (USD) over five years (2026-2030) is being presented as being “aligned to the Indian government’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision to accelerate the expansion of AI-driven services”. The choice of the platform to make the investment announcement was a Google event appropriately named Bharat AI Shakti, which is a pre-event to the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, hosted under the IndiaAI Mission. All boxes ticked.

Another interesting aspect is Google’s collaboration with leading partners AdaniConneX (and Airtel). It is now almost by default that an Adani entity will figure in the Indian government’s trade relations with other countries or foreign ventures in India. Interestingly, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance conglomerate enticed Meta and Google as partners to drive India into the AI era. It is a win-win deal because the foreign companies want India’s huge captive audience base, and Indian companies leverage their knowledge of the political and market systems to get a share of the spoils.

Given the controversy surrounding the energy-guzzling AI data centres, Google is promising not only to build energy-efficient data centres in Visakhapatnam but also to “work with local partners to deliver new transmission lines, clean energy generation, and energy storage systems in Andhra Pradesh.” Again, given Modi’s and India’s urge to be seen as leaders in clean energy technologies, Google would naturally harp on how the company will work with local partners to deliver clean energy generation and storage systems in Andhra Pradesh and contribute to the diversification of India’s energy portfolio.

Besides Google, AI companies have been making a beeline for setting up data centres or other AI-related initiatives. Microsoft, for instance, will be investing USD 3 billion in India in cloud and AI infrastructure and skilling. Not to be left behind, OpenAI, the US company that developed the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT mulling over setting up a 1 gigawatt AI data centre. Amidst all the feel-good hype, India should, due to national security and economic reasons, not ignore the regulation of foreign data centres, but without scaring off foreign investors.