Synopsis
Meta has deepened its India bet by partnering with Reliance Industries to build its first AI-ready data centre in the country, leasing 168 MW of capacity at Reliance's upcoming hyperscale campus in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The deal marks a significant milestone in the long-standing Meta-Reliance relationship and highlights India's emergence as a major hub for AI data centres. Roughly $270 billion cumulative investment has been committed by global hyperscalers and Indian conglomerates in data centres.Listen to this article in summarized format
“We’re proud to be working with Reliance to build our first AI-enabled datacenter in India,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive, Meta. “This world-class facility in Jamnagar will help us scale our AIinfrastructure globally while deepening our long-term investment in India’s economy.”
“This partnership with Meta marks a transformative moment for India’s digital infrastructure,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries Limited.
“Building India’s first built-to-suit AI data centre for a global technology leader of Meta’s scale demonstrates India’s readiness to be at the forefront of the global AI revolution,” Ambani said, adding that the group is committed to build world-class digital infrastructure to serve global workloads.
The facility will be powered by renewable energy and cooled with desalinated seawater, a cost which will be covered by Meta, it said. The global social media and AI giant will also connect Jamnagar with its ambitious subsea cable network Project Waterworth, touted to be the world's longest subsea system.
Meta is also separately partnering with two leading clean energy providers in India, CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy, to back nearly 1 gigawatts of renewable energy, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.
CleanMax will build 837 MW of new solar and wind projects in Rajasthan and Karnataka, taking the cumulative capacity to over 900 MW. Meanwhile, Fourth Partner Energy will construct 88 MW of new solar and wind projects across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh.
Meta’s long-standing partnership with Reliance started in 2020 when the former invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms for 9.98% stake. Since then, the two leaders have collaborated on various fronts including the latest AI joint venture Reliance Enterprise Intelligence Limited (REIL) where both companies have committed an investment of Rs 855 crore.
Reliance Industries has committed to invest $110 billion (Rs 10 lakh crore) in the coming seven years for developing AI-related infrastructure as Ambani envisions to connect “India to the intelligence era.”
"India cannot afford to rent intelligence. Therefore, we will reduce the cost of intelligence as dramatically as we did the cost of data," he said, addressing the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in Februray.
Adani Enterprises’ also plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 in AI infrastructure.
The Meta partnership comes at a time when demand for digital infrastructure fuelled by AI and regional data protection laws have unleashed a new wave of investments in India’s data center industry.
Global hyperscalers Microsoft, Amazon and Google as well as Indian conglomerates such as Reliance, Adani, Tata and L&T are set to invest more than $270 billion in the next five to seven years in the domestic data centre industry, taking total capacity to about 10 gigawatts from 1.4 gigawatt currently. Supportive government policies, including a 20-year tax holiday for cloud companies as well as safe harbour provisions, have also encouraged global companies to make long-term bets.
