MAM
ITC’s Fabelle debuts on Metaverse with a 3D wedding
Mumbai: With the new normal setting in, platforms like Metaverse are bringing people closer than ever before. ITC’s luxury chocolate brand Fabelle Exquisite Chocolates made its debut in Metaverse over this weekend.
Fabelle was an integral part of two weddings hosted on the Yug Metaverse and the TardiVerse (metaverse wedding partner – CoinSwitch Kuber) platforms.
In a ‘first-of-its-kind’ wedding event, the groom gifted the bride a metaverse version of Fabelle Trinity Truffles Extraordinaire. The brand further integrated a metaverse version of the Fabelle Chocolates cart, where guests could choose from an array of luxurious chocolates that would be delivered to their doorstep for a delightful experience even after the wedding. The elements of brand integration were conceptualised and deployed in association with Wavemaker India, agency partner of ITC.
“Metaverse is sure to elevate the bar of virtual gathering and meetings in the next few years, and we were one of the first off the block to transition to this platform. We are delighted to make our debut into the metaverse universe, and stand by our promise of delivering unparalleled experiences,” said ITC chocolates, confectionery, coffee, and new categories – food division chief operating officer Anuj Rustagi.
The couple- Abhijeet and Sansrati tied the knot on 5 February on a Made in India platform called Yug Metaverse. The digital avatars of the couple had their ceremony hosted on a scenic beachside venue where the guests also joined in via their digital avatars. The wedding on Saturday coincided with the physical event held in Bhopal.
“Marketing on Metaverse platform is the next wave in digital marketing,” said Wavemaker CEO- South Asia Ajay Gupte. “We have built an in-house team of experts to help our clients navigate better in this domain and find the right fit to associate with metaverse events. Metaverse is still at its nascent stage and offers us a huge opportunity to shape the platform that we really believe in. This is the future of consumer experience and we are all excited to ride this wave.”
Wavemaker India also crafted partnerships with Matrimony.com for the wedding. Talking about the 3D wedding, Matrimony.com chief marketing officer Arjun Bhatia said, “We feel excited about collaborating in a virtual world wedding experiment that opens up immense possibilities of engagement and immersion at YUG metaverse.”
Metaverse is a kind of virtual world where people can enter the digital world through virtual identity. In this virtual space, people also get a chance to hang out, shop, and meet friends. “Metaverse is a new concept and its adoption is still at an early stage worldwide. The team is excited to explore the possibilities that emerging technologies like metaverse, blockchain & cryptocurrency will open up in the future,” said Yug Metavers creator Utkarsh Shukla.
Digital
Google partners with Adani and Airtel to build India’s largest AI data centre
The three-campus complex, built with Adani and Airtel, is India’s largest-ever technology infrastructure investment
Visakhapatnam: Google has broken ground on what it is billing as India’s largest-ever technology infrastructure project: a gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, built in partnership with AdaniConneX and Nxtra by Airtel. The ceremony at Tarluvada on 28th April marked the start of construction on a three-campus data centre complex that sits at the heart of a $15 billion investment Google has committed to deploying across India between 2026 and 2030.
The numbers are staggering by any measure. Nearly 1 gigawatt of compute capacity at a single location, three data centre campuses, a fibre-optic expansion under the America-India Connect initiative, and a long-term clean energy strategy designed to feed new renewable supply into the national grid. Google says the project will help India hit its target of 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 while delivering the high-performance, low-latency infrastructure that businesses need to build and scale AI-powered services.
The groundbreaking drew a formidable gathering of political and corporate India. Union minister for information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and state IT minister Nara Lokesh attended alongside Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian, Adani Group directors Karan Adani and Jeet Adani, and Bharti Enterprises vice chairman Rakesh Mittal.
Vaishnaw framed the project in terms of national ambition. “The India AI hub and three subsea cables landing in Visakhapatnam will become very important infrastructure for the country’s journey forward,” he said, adding his thanks to Google for its “continued trust in India.” Naidu was equally bullish, describing Andhra Pradesh as “India’s premier investment destination” and the Vizag hub as a cornerstone of the state’s technology corridor. “Our vision goes beyond attracting investment,” he said. “We want local talent, startups, and enterprises to become active partners in this technology-driven growth story.”
Kurian called the groundbreaking “a powerful realization of our shared vision with the Indian government, and an inflection point for the country’s AI-native future.” Jeet Adani was characteristically direct: “When energy becomes more affordable and increasingly powered by clean sources, intelligence becomes more accessible, and that is how India will lead the next phase of digital growth.” Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman of Bharti Airtel, said the full stack of data centres, green power, pan-India fibre and a next-generation cable landing station would enable “large-scale, world-class AI infrastructure in Vizag.”
The project was first announced in October 2025. AdaniConneX and Nxtra by Airtel will lead construction of the data centre buildings and connecting infrastructure, with Google deploying its AI capabilities on top.
Beyond the hardware, Google has announced a substantial package of community programmes. On water, it is partnering with Sponge Collaborative on a watershed management plan linking coastal ecosystem restoration with clean drinking water systems, including reverse osmosis plants and Water ATMs, for local residents. On livelihoods, a tie-up with the Sambhav Foundation will equip more than 1,000 fisherfolk with GPS navigation, weather-forecasting tools, cold-chain management training and UPI-based financial literacy. The Google Udaan India Fund, run through ChangeX, will provide direct grants to local schools and social enterprises for AI skilling labs and digital literacy programmes. The NARI Shakti programme, developed with the Learning Links Foundation, will support more than 10,000 women entrepreneurs from low-income backgrounds in building micro-enterprises. The Skills Trade and Readiness programme will prepare more than 1,000 local workers for construction, welding and facility operations roles, while a parallel tie-up with ICT Academy will train more than 1,200 students and educators in cloud computing and generative AI.
The groundbreaking was accompanied by the Bharat AI Shakti Conclave, a conference organised with the Andhra Pradesh government and Nara Lokesh, bringing together suppliers, industry partners and infrastructure firms to map how Google’s anchor investment can be turned into a broader economic value chain for the region. The conclave’s central theme was building an AI industrial corridor, with a local-first procurement approach and the integration of regional small and medium enterprises into Google’s global operational frameworks.
Every major technology company in the world has been courting India. What sets Vizag apart is the sheer scale of the commitment and the deliberate effort to build an industrial ecosystem around it rather than simply plant servers in a field. Google is not just betting on India’s digital future; it is trying to build the factory floor on which that future gets made. Whether the $15 billion translates into genuine local opportunity, or merely into an impressive data centre humming quietly on the Andhra Pradesh coast, will depend on whether those community programmes prove as durable as the hardware. The groundbreaking, as ever, is the easy part.
