Indian businessman Gautam Adani, the world's 27th richest man, is set to invest aggressively in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. He is set to invest around $5 billion in Android maker Google's AI data center, Indian media reported.
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Google is building a new AI data center in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in southern India. The investment will be in partnership with Adani Connects Pvt Ltd, Adani Group Chief Financial Officer Juginder Singh told Bloomberg. This will make Adani Group one of the major Indian partners of Google Campus, Singh said.
“We are also looking to establish a large presence in the cloud and AI infrastructure market, which is currently growing aggressively, and this investment is a sign of that,” Singh of the Adani Group told reporters. “Not only Google, there are many other companies that want to work with us to build data centers with capacities above gigawatts.”
Earlier in October, Alphabet (Google) had announced a plan to spend $15 billion over five years to build a 1 gigawatt AI hub in Andhra Pradesh. According to Reuters, Google is currently preparing to invest about $85 billion in expanding data centers worldwide.
It is not just Adani that the race to invest in AI infrastructure is intensifying among industrialists in India. Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries has recently announced a plan to build a 1 gigawatt AI data campus in Andhra Pradesh by investing about $11 billion over five years in a partnership with Brookfield and US Trust Digital Realty. They are going to build an AI-native campus in Visakhapatnam on about 3 thousand ropanis.
Ambani aims to make his entire business, from telecom to retail and cloud services, AI-based. Reliance has been seriously investing and strategic partnerships in AI infrastructure and basic AI services of late. Other Indian business groups have also been increasing their investments in AI models, cloud computing and other high-performance long-term technologies in partnership with international tech companies.
Tata Consultancy Services and TPG have announced a joint investment of 2 billion US dollars to build an AI-oriented data center. Other industrial groups and private investors are also looking to invest in hyperscale campuses, edge computing, energy supply and cooling infrastructure. According to analysts, India's data center capacity could triple to about 4.5 gigawatts by 2030. The main reason for this is the expected strong demand for AI and cloud.
These investments are considered strategically important for India. From job creation and enterprise growth in coastal and urban areas to providing sufficient capacity for international cloud companies in the country, the Indian federal and state governments have been announcing aggressive incentives and facilities. For example, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, who went out to meet representatives of various technology and other companies, has already announced investments worth thousands of crores in AI and other technologies in his state.
Entrepreneurs including Adani, Ambani and others are competing, seeing the benefits of a growing market, along with stable income from data centers and the possibility of selling AI services to domestic organizations under the concept of ‘data residency’. However, as this aggressive investment in AI expands, criticism is also growing. Such rapid expansion is said to pose challenges to energy supply, land management and regulatory capacity.
However, with the $15 billion Google plan, $5 billion Adani investment and $11 billion Reliance program, as well as other Indian and foreign investors attracting billions of dollars in capital, it is also becoming clear how India is turning the AI opportunity into a market. Indian entrepreneurs are also looking to gradually establish a foothold in the burgeoning AI market.
