Visakhapatnam, also known as the "City of Destiny," is set to become the IT hub of Andhra Pradesh as the government develops plans to expand information technology into Tier II and Tier III cities. Visakhapatnam, one of the state's largest cities, is quickly emerging as a major IT hub. In addition to its picturesque setting, the availability of other advantageous facilities has piqued the interest of numerous firms in establishing operations in Visakhapatnam.

In a recent press conference, Minister Gudivada Amarnath stated that by attracting the right investments, Vizag will be transformed into Andhra Pradesh's IT industry hub on par with Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. He added that the government is working towards making Vizag the state's IT capital. 

STPI, which has 21 entrepreneurship centres in India, has now partnered with Vizag Steel Plant to promote innovation and start-up activities as well as bring Industry 4.0 readiness to Vizag. An established industry base, as well as infrastructure and technology support in the form of a maritime university, a steel plant, an export hub, and so on, is an added benefit for Vizag.

Visakhapatnam has the opportunities and potential to imbibe production hubs and technology test support centres in relevant fields like software, data centers, automobiles, etc. There were already around 30,000 people working in the IT sector in the city. Infosys is expanding its operations in the city, and a few more IT majors have expressed interest in setting up operations in Vizag, Mr. Amarnath said. Pulsus and WNS together have 7,000 employees in Vizag.

The government is encouraging college grads to come up with ideas and build some good products. It is even introducing some academic courses to nurture entrepreneurship. Going on par with a well-established city like Hyderabad, which has all the required infrastructure and the backing of a strong government, is not an easy task in hand, but Hyderabad was also in a similar situation as Vizag a couple of decades ago; now it is competing with Bangalore, the IT hub of the country. What Vizag needs at the moment is a couple of big companies to start their operations from here. The momentum has begun recently with the entry of big players like Randstad, Amazon, and Infosys, and we have to wait and see which other companies will set up their offices in Vizag.