AI firm to shift data center hub from Vizag over project clearance delay

Vijayawada: Ursa Compute, an AI infrastructure building company and one of only two companies in India that have access to NVIDIA’s most advanced B200 and B300 GPUs, is moving out of Andhra Pradesh, allegedly due to inordinate delays in project clearances.

While not completely moving out of AP, Ursa’s presence will be limited to a spoke, contrary to the initial proposal of setting up a hub in Visakhapatnam. The company is now said to be planning to build its hyperscalers in a hub-and-spoke model, with the hub located in Greater Noida and the two spokes in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

Ursa was the first AI and data centre company that proposed to invest in Visakhapatnam even before Google. It planned to build a 100 MW data centre and AI hyperscalers with an investment of Rs 5,500 crore. The State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) and the cabinet also cleared its proposals. About 50 acres of land in Kapuluppada area of Visakhapatnam was allotted for the data centre, besides three acres inside the IT SEZ for setting up the company’s main office.

However, the state govt kept the project on hold after a political controversy erupted, with opposition members expressing doubts over the company’s execution capabilities. As there was no clarity from the govt on land allocation, Ursa is now believed to be planning to shift out of AP partially by relocating its hub.

In the meanwhile, the company struck deals with NVIDIA to procure its most advanced B200 and B300 GPUs and onboarded the India AI mission. It is also one of the few companies that got IndiaAI Mission empanelment. Ursa is planning to deploy 2,888 GPUs as part of the IndiaAI Mission empanelment, placing it among a limited number of companies approved to work with these high-end processors. The GPUs will be used to train large AI models and run complex AI applications within the country.

When contacted, IT secretary Katamaneni Bhaskar said though the SIPB approval was given to Ursa’s proposal, the final orders were not given as the state govt did not approve the project in the first place. While the promoters of the company declined to comment, sources confirmed that the company is moving ahead with its Noida and Hyderabad projects, and has already started its data centre operations in Noida.

Ursa was founded by a group of second-generation NRIs from the USA, with its headquarters located in New York. Its primary focus is to build sovereign AI infrastructure at hyperscale and GPUs as a service platform. The company has onboarded people who worked with NVIDIA, Sun Micro Systems, and also those who worked in the IndiaAI Mission.