Meta signs first AI data center deal in India with Reliance

As tech firms race to safe the computing energy wanted to coach and deploy AI techniques, Meta is making its first AI infrastructure wager in India, putting an information heart partnership with conglomerate Reliance Industries in a market that’s quickly rising as a hub for AI infrastructure.

The partnership, introduced on Wednesday, will see Meta collaborate with Reliance on a 168-megawatt AI-enabled information heart in Jamnagar, Gujarat, increasing a relationship that has advanced from Meta’s multibillion-dollar funding in Reliance’s Jio Platforms to a $100 million three way partnership launched final yr to develop enterprise AI options for purchasers in India and abroad markets.

The deal comes as India cements its standing as a pure vacation spot for AI infrastructure investments, with tech giants searching for new geographies for information facilities amid hovering demand for computing energy to coach and deploy AI fashions. Corporations together with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and Uber have not too long ago introduced AI and cloud infrastructure investments within the nation, which has quickly expanded its information heart footprint lately.

The push into India extends past international know-how companies. Earlier this week, Blackstone-backed AirTrunk introduced plans to take a position $30 billion to construct 5 gigawatts of knowledge heart capability within the nation by 2030, whereas Indian conglomerates together with Adani and Tata Consultancy Providers have additionally unveiled main information heart enlargement plans aimed toward supporting AI workloads.

New Delhi has sought to draw such investments via coverage incentives, together with tax exemptions via 2047 for overseas cloud suppliers on companies offered abroad, as long as these workloads are run from Indian information facilities.

India’s put in information heart capability has risen from about 375 megawatts in 2020 to round 1.5 gigawatts in 2025, in keeping with authorities information. Trade estimates challenge that determine might develop greater than fivefold to over 8 gigawatts by the top of the last decade, pushed by cloud adoption, AI workloads, and rising demand for native information processing.

The Meta-Reliance settlement marks the most recent chapter in a relationship that has steadily deepened since Meta invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms in 2020. Since then, the businesses have expanded their collaboration throughout digital companies, enterprise AI, and now the infrastructure underpinning next-generation AI techniques.

As a part of the partnership, Meta is leasing capability at Reliance’s new Jamnagar facility, which the businesses mentioned will probably be powered by renewable vitality and cooled utilizing desalinated seawater. Meta has dedicated to overlaying the complete value of the vitality and water required to help its operations there.

Reliance mentioned the 168-megawatt facility will prepared inside two years and could be expanded over time. Additional, the info heart may also help Meta’s international infrastructure and AI computing necessities, plugging India extra straight into the corporate’s worldwide community of AI services.

Underneath the settlement, Reliance mentioned it will present end-to-end companies starting from design and development to renewable energy, connectivity, and ongoing operations, an indication of the conglomerate’s ambitions to grow to be a one-stop store for AI infrastructure amongst international know-how firms.

Individually, Meta mentioned it had contracted almost 1 gigawatt of recent renewable vitality capability in India via agreements with CleanMax and Fourth Accomplice Power, which can complement the renewable energy supporting the Jamnagar facility.

The businesses didn’t disclose the worth of the settlement, the kind of AI workloads that can run from the power, or whether or not Meta plans further AI infrastructure investments in India.