Meta Platforms has announced plans to lease a 168-megawatt artificial intelligence-enabled data center in India from Reliance Industries, marking one of its largest infrastructure investments in the country to date.

Under the agreement, Reliance Industries will construct the facility in Jamnagar and deliver it to Meta within two years. The deal also includes options for future expansion, providing Meta with additional flexibility as demand for AI computing power continues to accelerate globally.

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the facility will support the company’s global AI infrastructure strategy while reinforcing its long-term commitment to India. The project represents the latest stage in the relationship between Meta and Reliance, which began in 2020 when Meta invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms.

The partnership deepened further last year through a joint initiative that made Meta’s open-source AI models more accessible to Indian businesses and developers. Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani described the latest agreement as a significant milestone for India’s digital infrastructure development.

The announcement reflects a broader trend among global hyperscalers, which are increasingly directing investments toward India’s rapidly expanding data center market. According to industry estimates, approximately $400 billion has flowed into India’s AI ecosystem over the past year, with a substantial portion allocated to data centers and supporting energy infrastructure.

Analysts view India as one of the most attractive markets for AI infrastructure development due to its competitive operating costs, growing power availability, and supportive government policies. The country recently introduced a 20-year tax exemption for hyperscalers using Indian data centers to serve international customers, further strengthening its appeal as a regional AI hub.

Industry forecasts suggest India’s total data center capacity could reach 7 gigawatts by 2030, positioning the country among the fastest-growing digital infrastructure markets globally.

In parallel with the data center investment, Meta announced partnerships with Indian renewable energy providers CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy. The projects will provide nearly 1 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity across multiple Indian states to support Meta’s growing operations.

The company stated that these investments align with its broader objective of matching all operations with 100% clean and renewable energy, highlighting the increasing connection between AI expansion and large-scale energy development.

Looking Ahead

The agreement underscores how competition in artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a competition for computing infrastructure and energy resources. As demand for AI training and inference capacity continues to rise, India appears positioned to capture a growing share of global data center investment. The key factors to monitor will be execution timelines, energy availability, and whether additional hyperscalers follow Meta’s lead in expanding large-scale AI infrastructure within the country.