To wonder why Google is setting up a HUGE AI center in India and not in the UK?

I don't think India can be a superpower until it does something about its huge income disparity, caste issues, women's safety, infrastructure, corruption and all the deeply complicated problems of a country its size. China is way ahead in all those.

That said, everytime I visit, I am struck by the optimism, work ethic and can-do attitude of young people there.

Google is a global business. They will have more than one datacentre, and it makes sense to have them geographically dispersed for resilience. Better to lose one site there than two sites there, whether it'sbecause of war, flooding, earthquake or whatever. .

Once built, you need a few people on site to swap out failed bits of hardware once in a while, and for maintenance of electricity and plumbing, mostly for HVAC. But you can put most of the workers anywhere else you want, as long as they have a laptop and data connection. I've supported servers across Europe, Canada, the USA, Latin America, India, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong - and I've only ever physically worked in the UK.

This will be cheaper than building a DC here or in Europe (which Google already have,) but it won't be the only factor.

There are organisations that have restrictions on where data is physically held; I couldn't work on machines that were on a German government contract, because while the hardware being in Germany wouldn't be a restriction, me not being a German citizen would be.

I'm not sure why anyone would really expect Google to build a giant DC here, over many other possible locations, and particularly given the drought we had this summer, environmentally at least, it's a good thing.

I guess in the future countries like China and India are going to be the global superpowers. We will be some irrelevant, economically struggling small country. It all seems to be going to the dogs here.

And you need to Google the meaning of sarcasm. I mean the emoji was a bit of a giveaway…

Oh my. You’re very literal aren’t you?!

Some people are so concerned about "the economy" that they forget to consider actual humans. What's the point in making more money overall if the quality of life for most people suffers as a result?

Energy infrastructure will be a huge factor. UK energy costs are huge and India has put massive investment into this. It also has a much more supportive regulatory environment e.g AI databank to centralise data.

I reckon the flags strung up everywhere is a lovely welcome for them, don’t you think?

Because they are just being patriotic aren’t they, no racist overtones at all.

I bet brown, highly skilled individuals are scrambling over themselves to become teachers to these wonderful patriotic students, why earn 6/7 figures when you can take a UK teacher’s salary with students who definitely won’t give you any racist backchat and be eager to learn from a brown immigrant.

It’s exactly the message the flags send out.

Google seems to be managing:

share.google/yRBw9oGxnlK31XdOI

Try opening any business in the UK, then come back to me.

You'll have your answer.

Data centres also have a team of Engineers that work behind the scenes that cost money & they work 24x7x365 to keep everything running. They will be responsible for the main & back up systems.
Security & access
Air con Engineers
Facilities Engineers
Power Engineers/maintenance
Admin & management/planners/escalation teams
HR, payroll

All these cost money

It probably comes down to the availability (or not, I'm looking at you UK) of electricity and how quickly power generation capacity can be added.

You’ve answered your own question in the second paragraph.

The third paragraph is the most tenuous attempt to pin something on illegal / hotel migrants yet, and I say that as someone who thinks the whole immigration system is a shambles.

What are you going to blame them for next? Because I heard that they’ve got a lot to do with Space Raiders being 15p in some areas.

I dread to think the damage they’re gonna do in India. I hope they’re going to build the hospitals and the infrastructure to try and vaguely come compensate the people

Probably a good thing. IBM is were promising IT careers go to die.

I seem to remember the Natwest did something quite similar during the 90s. They ended up bringing it back to the UK after all the complaints.

No, they really don't.

Oh also, most of my skilled family members in tech don't want to move to the UK. One I know turned down an offer from IBM.

Why would they? They have a better quality of life in India ( by their metrics).
They might have a decade ago, but now they are put off by high taxes, rents, and the state of the NHS plus every political party calling them scroungers and drains.

Like-for-like, labour costs for IT staff in India are much cheaper and they are more productive than here. Instead of a few headline salaries, you need to consider experience levels and other associated costs such as benefits and welfare. They will also accept “lesser” working conditions (within reasons) such as longer hours.

Some people are definitely getting US or UK salaries. But the majority won't be, I guess. Including support and admin staff.

I might point out that Google CEO Sundar Picchai is a first gen Indian immigrant.
DS ran into him the other day in Tortilla! ( Really).

Datacentres can’t get on the Grid in the UK - was in the press the other day, could be as long as (from memory) 7 years for the infrastructure to support the enormous power needed. The state of our water networks speaks for itself. Factor in Net-Zero targets and the UK becomes even less appealing.

I’m glad we’re not carving up more green fields in the UK. Who needs another massive ugly building?!

Don’t we want brown workers to stop coming over here and stealing our jobs?

So creating viable work in India means Google is helping the cause, this surely is cause for much celebration.