If there is one theme that is buzzing across the boardrooms in India, it’s definitely data centre investment. AI adoption continues to surge globally, and India is no exception. What adds wings to the journey is the fact that India has under 5% of the global data centre capacity. This “gap between India’s AI aspirations and compute infrastructure presents a strategic opportunity,” pointed out a Deloitte study in May, 2025.
India Inc has taken up this national imperative to build AI data centres at scale with gusto. Investment in building AI-ready infrastructure is definitely a rising theme across corporate circles
Reliance accelerates data centre drive
If we are discussing data centres, it is hard not to mention Reliance and Vishakhapatnam. Digital Connexion a joint venture between Reliance Industries, Canadian investment firm Brookfield and US-based data centre company, Digital Realty will invest $11 billion by 2030 to build 1 GW capacity data centres in Visakhapatnam. Reliance’s $11 billion Vizag AI data centre will be spread over 400 acres.
A steel industry hub, Visakhapatnam is being positioned as Digital Connexion’s next anchor location in its data centre roadmap across India. The JV already has a data centre campus in Chennai and is developing another one in Mumbai.
L&T’s big data centre push
RIL is not alone in this race to get ahead on the data centre front. L&T is seeking approval for 5 new data centre projects. These are expected to boost its capacity to a whopping 300MW by 2031 from 30MW, almost a 10-fold increase.
The company surely means business. It has rebranded its digital vertical as L&T-Vyoma, and flagship Chennai campus boasts of 30MW capacity spread across 300 acres.
Speaking about the opportunities encompassing L&T-Vyoma’s 300MW Data centre plans, SN Subrahmanyan, Chairman & Managing Director, L&T, said, “As India’s data centre market is projected to grow exponentially over the next few years, Larsen & Toubro-Vyoma embodies our vision to build a trusted ecosystem.”
HCL Tech partners SAP
In another interesting turn of events, HCLTech partnered with SAP to advance Physical AI solutions that integrate intelligence into real-world operations across industries. HCLTech and SAP are set to explore next-generation use cases that bring the power of AI into physical and industrial environments.
Vijay Guntur, CTO and Head of Ecosystems at HCLTech said, “Through this new collaboration with SAP, we are enabling businesses to transform operations, accelerate innovation and realize measurable value from automation at scale.”
Cashing in on data centres: Crisil’s big projection
As they say, ‘tis all about the money – one factor that ties it all down is the business case that AI data centres represent. A recent report by Crisil Ratings indicates that data centre operators in India are expected to clock an annual revenue of Rs 20,000 crore by FY28. Crisil projected that the Rs 20,000 crore data centre boom is set to bring about a 20-22% annual surge till FY28. To cater to the buoyant demand, capacity in the industry is expected to double to 2.3-2.5 gigawatt (GW) by March 2028.
Along with the capacity addition and revenue growth, the capital expenditure in the sector is expected to rise to Rs 55,000-65,000 crore between FY26 -FY28.
Going forward, the data centre industry growth is expected to be driven by three factors – rapid adoption of public cloud, growing AI investment and proliferation of 5G technology, which drives demand for low-latency applications. It will be interesting to see how India Inc. adds scale to make the most of this opportunity.