Meta just committed to a 168-megawatt AI data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat — its first infrastructure play in India — by leasing capacity from Reliance Industries. That 168 MW is roughly the draw of 50,000 US homes, and it's dedicated entirely to AI compute.
Why India Suddenly Gets Data Center Dollars
India's installed data center capacity hit 1.5 gigawatts in 2025, up from 375 MW in 2020 — a 4x growth. Industry projections peg that at 8 GW by 2030, and the government is actively greasing the skids: tax exemptions through 2047 for foreign cloud providers running workloads from Indian data centers. Blackstone-backed AirTrunk just announced $30 billion for 5 GW by 2030. Tata, Adani, and now Reliance are all piling in. This isn't a niche — it's the next compute frontier.
The Jamnagar Facility: Not Just Another Server Barn
Meta and Reliance claim the Jamnagar site will use desalinated seawater for cooling — a real engineering constraint in the world's most populous country, where water is under increasing strain. The facility is designed to be expandable, will come online within two years, and Meta is covering the full cost of energy and water. Separately, Meta contracted nearly 1 gigawatt of new renewable energy in India via CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy. That's not a CSR line item; it's a necessity for maintaining density and cost predictability.
Deepening the Meta-Reliance Pipeline
This isn't a one-off server rental. Meta invested $5.7 billion in Reliance's Jio Platforms back in 2020, and the two launched a $100 million joint venture last year to build enterprise AI solutions. Now Meta is plugging Jamnagar directly into its global AI infrastructure network. Reliance provides end-to-end services — design, construction, renewable power, connectivity, operations — positioning itself as a one-stop shop for hyperscaler AI builds in the region.
What We Don't Know (Yet)
Meta and Reliance didn't disclose the deal's value, the specific AI workloads, or whether more Indian data centers are coming. But leasing dedicated capacity with full energy cost coverage, backed by 1 GW of new renewables, signals this is a multi-year strategic anchor, not a pilot. As AI training clusters scale past 100 MW per site, India's policy environment and available land are pulling the next wave of compute investment — and Jamnagar is the first concrete proof of that shift.
Source: Meta signs first AI data center deal in India with Reliance
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