Relevance (UPSC): GS-III Economy & Tech (Digital Infrastructure, AI); GS-II Governance (Data & Privacy)

Visakhapatnam is shaping up as an AI data centre hub on the east coast—close to submarine cable landings, a deep-water port, and reliable power corridors. The plan is to host dense graphics-processor (GPU) clusters for training and serving large AI models so startups, universities and public agencies can compute at home instead of renting abroad.

Why Vizag makes sense

• Connectivity & location: east-coast fibre paths that complement west-coast routes; easy logistics for heavy gear via port and rail.
  
• Power with green options: 24×7 supply that can be tied to renewables through the Green Open Access Rules (2022) and round-the-clock clean-power blends.
  
• Talent & users: engineering colleges across north coastal Andhra and neighbouring States; demand from ports, logistics, fisheries, health and city operations.
  

What an AI-ready campus needs (plain English)

• Dense compute & cooling: high-density GPU/accelerator racks with liquid or hybrid cooling; efficient power-usage effectiveness (PUE) targets (≈1.3 or better).
  
• Network muscle: multiple fibre routes, internet exchanges and edge nodes for low-latency services.
  
• Resilient power: dual substations, battery energy storage, and low-emission backup (gas now; green hydrogen pilots later).
  
• Trust & compliance: privacy-by-design under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; encryption at rest and in transit; certified audits; sectoral data-localisation where required.
  
• Sustainability & safety: treated-water reuse, waste-heat recovery, e-waste take-back; cyclone/flood maps, corrosion control and Tier-III/IV-class redundancy.
  

Why it matters for the region

• Jobs now: construction, electricals, HVAC, fibre and security.
  
• Careers next: AI/ML ops, data engineering, cybersecurity, facility management.
  
• Local innovation: compute credits for startups and colleges; domain datasets (ports, marine weather, crop and health).
  
• Better public services: disaster early-warning, traffic control, port analytics—all on low-latency local compute.
  

Key terms

GPU cluster (many accelerators working together), PUE (facility-efficiency ratio), Liquid cooling (circulated coolant removes server heat), Edge computing (processing close to users), Data localisation (storing certain data within India).

Exam hook

Takeaways: Vizag can be India’s strategic east-coast AI compute node if it couples green power, redundant fibre and strong privacy with skills pipelines and disaster-ready design. It aligns with the IndiaAI Mission and State data-centre incentives.

UPSC Prelims question
Q. With reference to AI-focused data centres, consider the following statements:

1. GPU racks often require liquid/hybrid cooling due to higher heat density than typical servers.
   
2. Power-usage effectiveness (PUE) is the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy.
   
3. The Green Open Access Rules (2022) enable large consumers to directly contract renewable electricity.
   Which of the statements given above are correct?
   (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
   Answer: (d)
   

One-line wrap: Put clean power, fast fibre and firm privacy around Vizag—and you get India’s east-coast launchpad for affordable, home-grown AI.