(Feb 17): Adani Group plans to invest US$100 billion ($126.19 billion) by 2035 to develop green-powered, AI-ready data centres as billionaire Gautam Adani seeks to capitalise on India’s bid to emerge as a hub for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.
The investment will likely “catalyse” an additional US$150 billion investment across server manufacturing, advanced electrical infrastructure and related sectors over the next decade, flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd said in a filing Tuesday. The company’s shares advanced as much as 3.1% after the announcement.
“The world is entering an Intelligence Revolution more profound than any previous Industrial Revolution,” chairman Adani said in a statement.
The doubling down on this sector by Asia’s second-richest person mirrors the global trend where governments and large corporations are spending trillions in an unprecedented AI hardware arms race. The ports-to-power conglomerate’s massive investment plans align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to make India an AI hub amid intense competition and surging demand for data centres.
India kicked off the AI Impact Summit, one of the world’s events in this sector that has already drawn the industry heavyweights, including Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai and OpenAI Inc’s Sam Altman.
AdaniConnex Pvt, a joint venture under Adani Enterprises, announced a partnership in October with Google, which is investing about US$15 billion to build India’s largest AI infrastructure hub at Visakhapatnam.
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The group, which will lean on its renewable energy assets to power these data centres, is also in discussions with other large firms to set up large-scale campuses across India, according to the statement.
Another group firm, Adani Green Energy Ltd, is developing a 30-gigawatt (GW) project at Khavda in western India, of which over 10GW is already operational. The conglomerate is spending tens of billions of dollars to expand its green energy portfolio, which will include one of the world’s largest battery energy storage systems.
Fast-growing arena
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Other Indian conglomerates are also looking to gain ground in one of technology’s fastest-growing arenas.
Digital Connexion, a joint venture of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, signed an US$11 billion investment pact for building data centres at Visakhapatnam in November. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd has also secured US$1 billion from TPG Inc to accelerate its own efforts.
Overseas investors and tech giants are pouring money into India to fund hyperscale AI infrastructure, tapping its expanding startup economy and the data troves generated by the world’s most-populous nation.
Amazon.com Inc plans to invest US$12.7 billion in cloud infrastructure spending in the country through 2030, while ChatGPT-creator OpenAI is seeking to set up a one-gigawatt data centre in the region.
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