Meta and Reliance ink partnership for AI data center in India
Meta and Reliance Industries are joining forces to inaugurate Meta's first artificial intelligence data center in India. This collaboration marks a significant step for Meta, which is betting heavily on AI infrastructure in a country emerging as a new hub for such investment. The announcement, made Wednesday, reveals that Meta and Reliance will build a 168-megawatt data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat. This partnership isn't new: it began with a multi-billion dollar investment by Meta in Reliance's Jio Platforms, evolving into a $100 million joint venture focused on AI solutions for enterprises in India and abroad.
Choosing India is no accident. The country is cementing itself as a natural destination for AI infrastructure investments. With the growing demand for computing power to train and run AI models, tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and Uber are eyeing India as a new home for their data centers. And it's not just international companies keeping an eye on Indian potential. Recently, Blackstone-backed AirTrunk announced a plan to invest $30 billion to build 5 gigawatts of data center capacity in the country by 2030. Indian conglomerates like Adani and Tata Consultancy Services are also expanding their operations to support AI workloads.
The Indian government is encouraging these investments with attractive policies, such as tax exemptions until 2047 for foreign cloud providers, provided operations are carried out in local data centers. India's installed data center capacity jumped from about 375 megawatts in 2020 to roughly 1.5 gigawatts in 2025. And projections are optimistic: this number is expected to surpass 8 gigawatts by the end of the decade, driven by cloud adoption, AI workloads, and growing demand for local data processing.
The model that strengthens the Meta-Reliance relationship
The agreement between Meta and Reliance is another chapter in a relationship that has deepened since Meta invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms in 2020. Since then, the companies have collaborated on digital services, enterprise AI, and now the infrastructure that will support next-generation AI systems. As part of the partnership, Meta will lease capacity at the new Jamnagar center, which will be powered by renewable energy and cooled with desalinated water. Meta has committed to bearing all energy and water costs necessary for its operations.
Reliance, in turn, promises to deliver end-to-end services, from design and construction to renewable energy, connectivity, and continuous operations. This demonstrates Reliance's ambition to become a full-service AI infrastructure provider for global tech companies. In addition, Meta has signed contracts for nearly 1 gigawatt of new renewable energy capacity in India, partnering with CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy, to complement the power that will sustain the Jamnagar center.
Meta and Reliance didn't disclose the deal's value, the types of AI workloads to be run at the site, or whether Meta plans further AI infrastructure investments in India. But one thing is certain: India is on the map for tech giants when it comes to AI infrastructure, and the partnership between Meta and Reliance is a clear example of that.
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