AirTrunk commits $30 billion to build 5 GW of AI data centers in India

AirTrunk, the Blackstone-backed data center operator, said Thursday it will invest $30 billion in India by 2030, adding to a wave of commitments from technology and infrastructure groups seeking to expand computing capacity in the country.

Australian company He said It will develop 5 gigawatts of new data center capacity in India, one of the largest commitments to the digital infrastructure sector in the South Asian country. AirTrunk entered India earlier this year through the acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra.

AirTrunk’s commitment underscores India’s growing attractiveness as a destination for AI infrastructure, as technology companies and investors seek new geographies to expand computing power. The country’s data center capacity is Expected to rise to up to 8 gigawatts by 2030 from about 1.5 gigawatts today, according to research firm Bernstein.

The Indian government has also taken steps to attract investment in AI infrastructure. Earlier this year, New Delhi showcased foreign cloud service providers Tax breaks until 2047 on services sold abroad if these workloads are run from Indian data centers.

AirTrunk has already started laying the foundation for its expansion in the country. Earlier this week, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis He said in a post on X The western Indian state has exchanged a letter of intent to allocate land at the Raigad Pen Growth Centre, where AirTrunk plans to set up a 3 GW data center involving an investment of around INR 2 trillion (about $21 billion). The company already has a development pipeline of around 600 MW across Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

AirTrunk did not respond to questions about whether the proposed Raigad project would account for most of the planned 5 GW capacity, or whether it plans additional developments elsewhere in India.

The announcement comes after a meeting between AirTrunk CEO Robin Khoda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi He said in a post on X The planned investment will help strengthen India’s position as a global hub for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

AirTrunk joins a growing list of companies investing in infrastructure in the country. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAIand Uber It has announced major investments in cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence, while Indian companies Reliance Industries, Adani Groupand TCS It has made ambitious plans to expand data center capacity.

However, data centers require huge amounts of electricity, water and land, and industry executives and analysts have pointed to resource issues as a potential bottleneck, particularly with regard to energy.

Deloitte Estimates Building data centers in the Asia-Pacific region could require tens of terawatt-hours of additional electricity by the end of the decade.

AirTrunk’s investment thesis is based on government support, a large pool of tech talent, and access to renewable energy, Khoda said.