India’s Reliance plans to build the world’s biggest AI datacenter in India

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is planning to build the ‘world’s largest’ data center in Jamnagar, India, as the country and its companies try to catch up in the race to develop powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) models that compete with the world’s best. Plans for the project in Gujarat first surfaced in September last year, with the Indian billionaire now claiming it will be "the largest data center in the world."

Reliance is expected to buy AI semiconductors for the facility from Nvidia, as reported by Bloomberg. Further details of the plans remain unknown.

Last year, Reliance and Nvidia announced a partnership to develop AI supercomputers in India and create Large Language Models (LLMs) trained in the country’s diverse languages.

The pair also announced a joint attempt to build AI infrastructure across India. Nvidia said at the time it would supply its Blackwell B200 AI processors for Reliance’s planned gigawatt scale data center.

Whilst Reliance claims the facility will be the world's largest, Start Campus is in the process of launching a 1.2GW site in Sines, Portugal, and the likes of Sailfish, Edged, and Meta are all planning gigawatt-scale campuses around the globe.

"It makes complete sense that India should manufacture its own Sovereign AI. You should not export data to import intelligence. India should not export flour to import bread," said Jensen Huang at the time.

Ambani added: “We can use intelligence to actually bring prosperity to all the people and bring equality to the world… Apart from the US and China, India has the best digital connectivity infrastructure.”

Although on that point I think I’d disagree somewhat … Nvidia has also formed a similar partnership with the Tata Group.

The Indian government has also pledged recent support for the country’s AI goals, with an investment of over Rs 10,000 crore ($1.16bn) to fund startups and AI projects.

India’s chipmaking industry is still relatively new and building semiconductor fabs is no easy feat. The country is still developing workforces for the fabs and is yet to produce its first home-grown chip.

Last year, Tata Electronics partnered with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in September to build India’s first semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dholera, Gujarat.

Data centers in Gujarat have been concentrated in Ahmedabad. CtrlS broke ground on a $30 million facility in the state at the end of 2023, and Telangana also wants a slice of the AI action.

The Telangana Government has teamed up with Blackstone’s data center arm, Ursa Clusters, and Tillman Global Holdings to build several data center facilities.Blackstone’s data center arm is planning a 150MW facility that will see an investment of Rs 4,500 crore ($521m), as reported by the Malaysia Sun.

The project will be designed with hyperscalers in mind and is set to support AI and cloud computing applications.

In a similar deal, US-based Ursa Clusters has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telangana government for a 100MW AI-optimized data center, also in Hyderabad. This facility will see an investment of Rs 5,000 crore ($580m), although further details and timelines also have not been shared.

Finally, Tillman Global Holdings has planned a Rs 15,000 crore ($1.7bn) data center facility in Hyderabad, set to supply 300MW of capacity at full build-out.

As reported by the Deccan Chronicle, Dr Sridhar Babu, senior minister for the Telangana government, said: “Tillman Global Holdings investment reflects our state’s investor-friendly policies and its abilities to attract global technology leaders. This partnership with Tillman Global Holdings will further enhance Hyderabad’s stature as a global data center hub.”

Hyderabad has become a recent hotspot for data centers, with the likes of Iron Mountain, AdaniConneX, Nxtra, Microsoft, and Tata Communications all having a presence. AWS also operates a cloud region from Hyderabad and announced plans to expand its data center facilities in the city last year.

This month, STT GDC and CtrlS have both unveiled plans for data center campuses in Hyderabad.