Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, N. Chandrababu Naidu, arrived in Singapore this week armed with an ambitious vision – to build a futuristic greenfield capital city he deems will be unlike any other in the country, India’s first quantum computing facility, and a rapidly growing tourism sector, all powered by renewable energy. The two-day visit, spanning June 15 and 16, included meetings with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan, as well as roundtables on semiconductors and venture capital.
But it was the visit itself – Mr Naidu’s second to Singapore in under two years – that spoke loudest at the roadshow held at Pan Pacific Orchard, noted India’s High Commissioner to Singapore, Shilpak Ambule.
“This being the second visit in the second round of roadshows in the last two and a half years,” Dr Ambule told the audience, “amongst the different states of India which have come here, it goes on to show how much importance Andhra Pradesh attaches to Singapore.”
At the centre of the pitch is Google’s planned US$15 billion AI Hub in Visakhapatnam, a project the company says will bring its full AI stack to India and provide the infrastructure backbone for the country’s expanding digital economy.
The pitch centred on velocity. Mr Naidu described a major investor who arrived with $15.8 billion in proposed investment to set up a steel plant. and received land allocation and all regulatory clearances in 18 months flat, with the first phase of production to start at the 29- month mark.
LG Electronics, he added, is building a home appliance plant at Sri City with a S$950 million (7,000 crore Rs) investment, and more data centres are in the pipeline.
On screen, a slide titled “Governance 4.0: Real Time & AI Powered” showed a real-time command hub monitoring 42 parameters statewide, feeding an AI intelligence layer, and 1,070 citizen services accessible via WhatsApp.
Another slide announced Quantum Valley – India’s first quantum computing facility, launched in April 2026, with a 9-million-square-foot campus planned and supposedly the home of the country’s first IBM quantum computer.
The state’s broader target is to achieve a $2.4 trillion economy by 2047, a per capita income of $42,000, and exports of $450 billion, up from $20 billion today.
The centrepiece of the pitch was Amaravati, a greenfield capital Mr Naidu is building on 217 square kilometres along the Krishna River.
Planned as a green energy city with electric vehicles only and all utilities underground, its Foster + Partners-designed assembly building broke ground in May 2025, backed by nearly S$8 billion (58,000 crore Rs) in projects launched by Prime Minister Modi.
The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have committed S$1.8 billion (13,500 crore Rs) in loans.
Singapore designed the original master plan. Mr Naidu recalled flying here after Andhra Pradesh’s 2014 bifurcation to seek aid. Within six to eight months, “they delivered without taking one pie from the government of Andhra Pradesh,” he noted.
Now 76 and in his fourth term, Mr Naidu earned the nickname “CEO of Andhra Pradesh” in the 1990s by turning Hyderabad into a global IT hub.
He candidly shared his love for Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew: “From the beginning, I’ve been a great admirer of Lee Kuan Yew. How he built Singapore – one of the most ethical countries, with a very disciplined, ethical business.”
He closed the Singapore session with an invitation to Visakhapatnam for the CII Partnership Summit later this year. “Once anybody comes or settles (in Andhra Pradesh),” he said, “they won’t leave.”
