India is hoping to garner as much as $200 billion in investments for data centers over the next few years as it scales up its ambitions to become a hub for artificial intelligence, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.
“Today, India is being seen as a trusted AI partner to Global South, seeking open, affordable and development-focused solutions,” Vaishnaw told The Associated Press in an email interview, even as New Delhi hosts the India AI Impact Summit this week. “A trusted AI ecosystem will attract investment, accelerate adoption,” he said, adding that a central pillar of India’s strategy to capitalise on the use of AI is building infrastructure.
The investments underscore the reliance of tech titans on India as a key technology and talent base in the global race for AI dominance. For New Delhi, they bring in high-value infrastructure and foreign capital at a scale that can accelerate its digital transformation ambitions.
In October, Google announced a $15 billion investment plan in India over the next five years to establish an AI hub in the world’s most populous country. Microsoft Corp. followed two months later with $17.5 billion to grow India’s cloud and AI infrastructure over the next four years.
Amazon.com Inc. too has committed $35 billion investment in India by 2030 to expand its business, specifically targeting AI-driven digitisation. The cumulative investments are part of $200 billion in investments that are in the pipeline and New Delhi hopes would flow in.
The government recently announced a long-term tax holiday for data centres as it hopes to provide policy certainty and attract global capital.
India’s AI Pitch
Vaishnaw said India’s pitch is that AI must deliver measurable impacts at scale rather than remain an elite technology.
The government has already operationalised a shared computing facility with more than 38,000 GPUs, allowing startups, researchers and public institutions to access high-end computing without heavy upfront costs.
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“AI must not become exclusive. It must remain widely accessible. India will become a major provider of AI services in the near future,” he said, describing a strategy that is “self-reliant yet globally integrated” across applications, models, chips, infrastructure and energy.