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Kumar Utkarsh
Kumar Utkarsh is a journalist, technology observer, and cricket enthusiast with over three years of experience in the media industry. Currently serving as a Sub-Editor at India Dot Com English, he cov ... Read More
As India surges forward in the age of AI and cloud computing, its corporate giants are making deep bets. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Reliance Industries, Adani Group and Bharti Airtel are among the leaders committing tens of billions of dollars to build gigawatt-scale, AI-ready data centres – infrastructure that will power the next decade of India’s digital transformation.
A tectonic shift in India’s data landscape
In a strategic pivot away from its traditional asset-light model, TCS has launched a massive build-out under a joint venture with private equity firm TPG Capital. The plan: pour in as much as ₹ 18,000 crore to create a 1.2-GW platform called HyperVault AI Data Centre Ltd – capacity roughly equal to that of all existing data centres in India combined.
Industry forecasts mirror the scale of ambition. Estimates from firms such as JLL place investments across the sector at $35-50 billion over the next five to seven years. Meanwhile, Jefferies predicts that domestic data-centre capacity could rise from the current 1 GW to about 8–9 GW by 2030.
Adani, Reliance and Airtel: Ramping up capacity
On another front, Adani Group – via its joint-venture arm AdaniConneX – is scaling its data-centre push across multiple states. The initiative builds on Adani’s earlier ₹ 500 billion (≈ US$5.9 billion) infrastructure commitment in Maharashtra, and expands its footprint beyond Chennai and Hyderabad to emerging hubs like Mumbai and Pune.
Reliance Industries has also stepped up. Riding on its earlier 1-GW AI data-centre in Jamnagar, the company recently committed to invest $11 billion over five years for a 1-GW facility in Visakhapatnam, in partnership with Canada’s Brookfield and U.S.-based Digital Realty. The scale of the project marks one of India’s biggest data-infrastructure commitments. Meanwhile, Airtel – operating through its data-centre arm Nxtra Data – continues to hold a strong market presence. According to analysts at Jefferies, Airtel, AdaniConneX and Reliance combined are expected to control 35–40% of India’s data-centre capacity by 2030, while Nxtra alone currently holds around 15%.
Why the rush? Demand, economics and policy
The data-centre surge is underpinned by an exponential rise in data demand: India’s data consumption soared from 8 exabytes in financial year 2017 to 229 exabytes by FY25 – driven by streaming platforms, digital payments, cloud adoption, e-commerce and AI use.
India is great for data centers because it’s cheap. Building costs are among the lowest globally, and electricity is 20% cheaper than in the US. With huge power capacity (452.7 GW by Oct 2024) and almost half from renewables, India can easily support these energy-demanding facilities.
Further strengthening the case are robust connectivity options – including a dense subsea-cable network linking major coastal hubs – and state-level policy incentives such as electricity-duty waivers and stamp-duty concessions.
What it means for India’s digital future
With capacity potentially hitting 8-9 GW by 2030, India is well on its way to becoming a global-scale data hub – not just for domestic demand but for Southeast Asia and beyond.
For enterprises, governments and innovators, the flood of new infrastructure bets signals a structural shift: from renting access to overseas servers, to hosting data-and running next-gen AI workloads – on home soil. It’s a big bet on digital sovereignty, economic growth and the next wave of technological transformation.
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