India’s digital infrastructure race has reached an unprecedented intensity, anchored by an $11 billion investment pledge from Digital Connexion, the joint venture between Reliance Industries, Brookfield, and Digital Realty. The commitment, aimed at developing a one gigawatt (1 GW) AI-native data centre campus in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, is a defining maneuver in the competition to host the world’s next generation of artificial intelligence workloads.
The scale of the project, slated for completion by 2030, is immediately framed by the broader gold rush for compute capacity in the region. The Digital Connexion announcement coincided directly with Larsen & Toubro’s (L&T) parallel pledge of $2.5 billion to construct five data centres, including a Vizag facility, with a combined capacity of at least 300 megawatts.
These commitments are stacking up against the $15 billion AI hub previously announced by Google and its partners. In total, the state has successfully drawn an immense $26 billion in commitments for AI-based projects, solidifying Visakhapatnam’s transformation from a coastal hub into a critical node in the global data ecosystem, with capacity expected to hit 2 GW by 2031.
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This battle is fundamentally about controlling the infrastructure of the AI economy. For Reliance, the investment is a direct strategic play to position itself against global tech leaders. By creating a purpose-built, high-density 1 GW facility, Reliance gains the foundational capability required to compete directly with hyperscalers like Google and emerging AI leaders like Anthropic, both of whom are planning their own compute infrastructure in the region. This control over the underlying hardware ensures that Reliance’s expansive Jio network and growing enterprise solutions are powered by proprietary, cutting-edge AI compute, thereby securing a critical vertical in India’s digital stack.
For the international partners, the value proposition is one of immediate, deep market penetration. Brookfield, bringing significant capital, and Digital Realty, providing world-class data centre operational expertise, gain critical, early-mover access to India’s massive digital consumer base.
This market is projected to swell to over 900 million internet users by year-end, representing an unparalleled opportunity for high-margin, long-term infrastructure investment. By partnering with Reliance, the duo bypasses complex market entry barriers and secures a guaranteed anchor client in one of the fastest-growing digital economies globally.
The architecture of the campus reflects its strategic purpose. It will be AI-native, meaning the facility is engineered specifically for the extreme power consumption and thermal management challenges posed by GPUs and advanced AI processors, requiring specialized Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling systems. To sustainably manage the immense energy needs—a gigawatt of capacity consumes power equivalent to half of Mumbai’s annual usage—Digital Connexion has committed to integrating the cluster with a dedicated six-gigawatt solar power plant and battery energy storage. This aggressive focus on renewable power is essential for both competitive pricing and long-term regulatory stability.
With the Andhra Pradesh government proactively facilitating land allocation and regulatory clearances, the investment serves as a major accelerator for the nation’s technological ambitions. The combination of local industrial might, global capital, and specialized technological expertise is not just building data centres; it is constructing the sovereign AI foundation upon which India’s digital economy will compete on a world stage.
