Reliance-led joint venture announces $11bn AI hub in Visakhapatnam

A joint venture between India’s Reliance Industries and two North American companies will invest $11 billion to develop an artificial intelligence data centre in southeastern India, the Andhra Pradesh government said on Wednesday.

The five-year investment will go into building a one-gigawatt AI data centre in Visakhapatnam. The announcement follows Google’s plan last month to spend $15 billion over the same period on a giant data centre and AI base in the city, which it said will be its biggest facility outside the United States.

The Digital Connexion joint venture brings together retail-to-refining conglomerate Reliance, Canadian multinational Brookefield and US real estate investment firm Digital Realty.

The investment will drive “jobs, innovation and global tech investment”, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said in a post on X.

“This landmark project underscores Andhra Pradesh’s emergence as a leading destination for advanced digital infrastructure and next-generation computing capabilities,” the state government said in a statement.

Demand for AI tools and solutions is surging in India, which is expected to have more than 900 million internet users by the end of the year.

Data centres continue to see strong global momentum, driven by the need to store massive amounts of digital data and support energy-intensive AI systems. Leading US AI companies have stepped up their India focus, making a series of expansion announcements in recent months.

US startup Anthropic said in October it plans to open an office in India next year, with its chief executive Dario Amodei meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. OpenAI has said it will also open an Indian office this year, with chief executive Sam Altman noting that ChatGPT usage in the country had grown fourfold over the past year.

AI firm Perplexity announced a major partnership in July with Indian telecom company Airtel, giving its 360 million customers a free one-year Perplexity Pro subscription.

(With inputs from agencies)