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

[LadyGillingham]

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/google-invest-10-billion-data-centre-south-india-2025-10-14/

India has crazy salaries ! FAANG+ companies employ tens of thousands in India and pay them USD salaries. Why arent these companies investing in the UK? We are an English speaking nation, with world class universities.

A few things I can tell you from the rule book India’s IT industry played by and came out successful every time. They offered land for free to these companies and built infrastructure/connectivity around it. They gave these companies insane tax breaks. The companies, in return, created a lot of employment. Hotels, resultants, businesses boomed and govt started to get huge returns from taxes. They rinsed and repeated this in several cities. Result ? US like multi citi tech hubs creating employment and prosperity to people and Government alike.

It’s stupid to throw crazy taxes at corporations to fund illegals immigrants in hotels. Companies just move elsewhere. Result? What we have now. High unemployment, stupidly high taxes for the employed, rich moving away, companies moving away, tax deficits and then increase taxes again to fund shit initiatives, cut funding for NHS and Schools. Rinse and repeat, race to the bottom.

Yes completely, corporations are subject to higher taxes just to fund migrants in hotels… 🙄

That's a pretty one-sided picture, OP. Govts generally try to strike a balance between tax concessions and other incentives on the one hand and requiring corporations to shoulder the responsibilities all of us have to contribute to the welfare state and other public costs.

The reality of your hyperbolic post is that, in this sector, the govt in India has struck a different balance from the govt in the UK, which isn't on some crazy mission to chase away 'wealth creators'.

Also worth pointing out that in India the richest 1% own more than 40% of total wealth, and the bottom 50% hold just 3% (which is more unequal than the UK). So it is important to interrogate who benefits and who suffers from the concessions.

India has incredible English speaking tech talent. It is an English speaking nation for all practical purposes because these days in metro cities, most graduates are educated in English. STEM is highly encouraged.

A lot of the initial AI work was done in poorer countries where they got people to sit for hours pressing hazards on pictures of streets for example. And paid them peanuts because they could. We have a higher standard of living, it will be a lot cheaper in India and the govt will look the other way at poor practices.

So many reasons. Hyper educated workforce with the right skills, much better work ethic, less unionised/easier to hire and fire.

Why shouldn't Indians earn salaries comparable to the US?

You've made a lot of wild-assed claims there, champ!

Pay rates for FAANG employees in India are high relative to India, but low compared to UK/US. There's a lot of IT students coming out of Indian universities so there's a large talent pool to choose from. It's also a big market for services so if you want to sell Facebook etc to Indian users, it makes sense to have Indian developers to localise it.

Datacentres themselves aren't big sources of employment once they're built. But I have no idea where you got the impression that AI datacentres aren't being built in the UK - both Microsoft and Google are building them here a even the most cursory of AI-assisted web searches would have told you.

I get the feeling that your complaints about FAANGs in India is a smokescreen for your real complaints which you hint at in your last para. So tell me - which UK political party do you think would be doing a better job? And does it begin with "R"?

Higher taxes, higher regulations, higher bureaucracy, higher employment laws ( about to get worse)

the U.K. is doing zero to promote investment and actudlly discouraging it. We’ve lost multiple large company investments in the last year m. We should be doing the opposite of what Labour are - lowering taxes and reducing burden on companies

Superior workers.

Surely it is cheaper (think of the land, water, materials needed to build it and maintain it).
They may pay a huge salary to some, but they will top up their staff members with local IT technicians, who will not get paid as much.
If India has excellent servers and connections, willing to fast track permits and reduce taxes on it, then it is all cheaper for them and easier.
I can imagine talking to an AI with indian accent. Some parts of India are not that easy for me to understand LOL.
What Europe needs to do is return to make our own things, including IT. Bring back manufacturing here, design here, engineering here, IT services here. But none of the governments we have are willing to do it, because the first steps will be very very difficult. So what we are seeing is a shift of wealth. All of it going abroad. This would not be that huge of a problem if we were not left having to purchase everything abroad. It will come to a point when we neither have money enough to buy it, neither we have the knowledge and resources to make it.

AI data centres use up water like crazy, they are an environmental hazard. If it is being built in an area where there is already water poverty, it’s a disaster unless it’s using a cooling system which does not draw on local resources.

The only thing that bothers me about this is the question of data security. The UK and EU have pretty stringent measures in place (and even then, they sometimes fail). I don't know much about India, but I'd wonder how hot they are on information security.

Your point about illegal immigrant in hotels is quite a reach.

It’s cheaper, including salaries, the workforce in general have an amazing work ethic, and they are highly skilled and innovative.
next daft question.
oh, and not everyone is on ‘crazy’ salaries - a lot of the support staff, admin, cleaners etc will be far, far cheaper to employ.
Our Indian colleagues put the rest of us to shame most of the time! Their can do, problem solving, creative attitudes are amazing compared to their US/ European counterparts.

That's complete nonsense and you know it. Why are you repeating this rubbish? Are you shilling for Farage and co?

You're ridiculous

I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that.

We have a huge software development centre in India and the code quality is average at best.

What it gives the company is cheaper employees, with the ability to hire easily and fire even more easily.

We have some of the highest energy prices in the world. If I was setting up an unbelievably energy intensive operation, the UK would be the last place I would put it.

Don't think they are necessarily cheaper. People in those fields are moving to Imdia for jobs. The workers are better and smarter than your average worker here.

You need a lot of computer chips not do this and they are built in Asia. So makes sense to build an AI centre in Asia. China is out. India obvious choice.

They will employ internationally, it’s likely many AI professionals from UK would move there.

I’m fairly certain that Terry, who’s greatest achievement in the past 5 years has been painting a wobbly red cross on a mini roundabout in Grimsby, is not what they would be looking to employ.

Brexit was the start of making the UK deeply unattractive, the added corporation tax is a bit of a smoke screen, the complications of no free trade, the uncertainty of future rules and well it doesn’t really present an image of international cooperation and welcome does it?

The announcement of building an AI centre would have been years in the preparation, it wasn’t Spring budget that caused this. But it’s a nice feeling to blame Labour for the repercussions of Brexit isn’t it? And some of the country want to go again and let Farage be in charge, it’s utter madness. As long as they can still blame lefty-liberal wokies for everything that is unpopular everyone will be happy.

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You need a lot of computer chips not do this and they are built in Asia. So makes sense to build an AI centre in Asia. China is out. India obvious choice.

They will employ internationally, it’s likely many AI professionals from UK would move there.

I’m fairly certain that Terry, who’s greatest achievement in the past 5 years has been painting a wobbly red cross on a mini roundabout in Grimsby, is not what they would be looking to employ.

Brexit was the start of making the UK deeply unattractive, the added corporation tax is a bit of a smoke screen, the complications of no free trade, the uncertainty of future rules and well it doesn’t really present an image of international cooperation and welcome does it?

The announcement of building an AI centre would have been years in the preparation, it wasn’t Spring budget that caused this. But it’s a nice feeling to blame Labour for the repercussions of Brexit isn’t it? And some of the country want to go again and let Farage be in charge, it’s utter madness. As long as they can still blame lefty-liberal wokies for everything that is unpopular everyone will be happy.

You need a lot of computer chips not do this and they are built in Asia. So makes sense to build an AI centre in Asia. China is out. India obvious choice.

They will employ internationally, it’s likely many AI professionals from UK would move there.

I’m fairly certain that Terry, who’s greatest achievement in the past 5 years has been painting a wobbly red cross on a mini roundabout in Grimsby, is not what they would be looking to employ.

Brexit was the start of making the UK deeply unattractive, the added corporation tax is a bit of a smoke screen, the complications of no free trade, the uncertainty of future rules and well it doesn’t really present an image of international cooperation and welcome does it?

The announcement of building an AI centre would have been years in the preparation, it wasn’t Spring budget that caused this. But it’s a nice feeling to blame Labour for the repercussions of Brexit isn’t it? And some of the country want to go again and let Farage be in charge, it’s utter madness. As long as they can still blame lefty-liberal wokies for everything that is unpopular everyone will be happy.

India has the best trained IT and technology workforce globally. They’re going where the talent pool is.

Some posters just don't get sarcasm do they?

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