The Adani Group said Tuesday that it will invest $100 billion to build renewable energy-powered AI-ready data centres by 2035, as the ports to energy conglomerate looks to tap into the growing demand for such infrastructure in the world, with India hoping to position itself as a key destination for these facilities.
The investment is expected to catalyse by 2035 an additional $150 billion across server manufacturing, advanced electrical infrastructure, sovereign cloud platforms and supporting industries. Together, this is projected to create a $250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India over the decade, the company said in a statement.
“Nations that master the symmetry between energy and compute will shape the next decade. India is uniquely positioned to lead… India will not be a mere consumer in the AI age. We will be the creators, the builders and the exporters of intelligence,” said Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group.
The big-ticket investment announcement comes amid the ongoing India-AI Impact Summit, and is among the first high-profile infrastructure-related announcements that are expected to be made during the five day summit, which concludes on February 20. It also comes weeks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her Union Budget speech a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign companies operating through India-based data centre infrastructure.
The Adani Group said the fresh investment will expand its existing 2 GW data centres capacity to 5 GW.
India’s data centre market is currently estimated to be worth $10 billion, with around $1.2 billion revenue generated in FY24, according to a recent report by Anarock.
Last month, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that private investments in India’s AI infrastructure could double from last year’s $70 billion by the end of the ongoing financial year (FY26). Last October, TCS said it will invest $6.5 billion over five years to build 1 gigawatt (GW) in AI-ready data centres. The same month, Google announced an investment of $15 billion to build a 1GW data centre, in partnership with the Adani Group. In December, Microsoft said it would invest $17.5 billion in the country, with primary focus on AI data centres.Amazon has announced Amazon announced it will invest $35 billion in India over five years, without specifying how much of it would go toward data centre expansion.
A research note by S&P Global from 2024 estimated that more than $100 billion will be invested in such facilities in the region over the next five years. The spending will capitalise on strong data growth and the rise in artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and digitalisation.
Data centres satiate one of the most important aspects of AI demand – the need for computing power.
Computing capacity, or compute, is among the most important elements of building a large AI system, apart from algorithmic innovation and data sets. It is also one of the most difficult elements to procure for smaller businesses looking to train and build such AI systems, given the high costs.
