A Reliance Industries joint venture will invest $11 billion over five years to develop 1 gigawatt of AI data-centre capacity in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the companies and the state government said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The venture, called Digital Connexion, includes Canadian multinational Brookfield Corporation and U.S.-based real estate investment trust Digital Realty. The project will create an AI-native data-centre campus across 400 acres of land in Visakhapatnam, a major port city on India’s eastern coast.
The investment comes as the global boom in artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for computing power and large-scale data-centre infrastructure. In October, Google said it would build AI data-centre capacity in Visakhapatnam over the next five years, in what will be its largest AI hub outside the United States, Reuters reported.
The surge in AI adoption has prompted corporations worldwide to accelerate investment in data-centre projects. India is emerging as a key market, with total national capacity expected to more than triple to 4.5 gigawatts by 2030 from current levels, according to real-estate consultancy Colliers.
Last week, Indian IT services company TCS announced a separate partnership with private-equity firm TPG to invest $2 billion in equity to form a joint venture aimed at developing additional AI-focused data centres across India, Reuters said.
