Frontier desk
AI & Data Centers
डेटा केंद्रIndia’s newest heavy industry does not look like one.
The brief
This is the desk for the buildings the word cloud was invented to hide. A data centre has no chimney, no furnace and no shift horn. It has land a state assembled, power a grid must hold at its peak, water it may or may not report, a tax ruling, and a subsea cable that comes ashore a few kilometres away. That is a heavy industry. It arrived in the shape of a warehouse.
We cover it the way Vayam covers steel or coal: from the thing you already touch — a UPI payment, a water tanker, a video call — down to the machine underneath, and on to who pays for it. Five desk pen-names write here, each with its own rules, and every figure links to where it came from. For capacity and investment the house source is CBRE. Other houses appear only where CBRE is silent or where their disagreement is the story. We never average them.
Start with the desk's opening note, or go straight to the building that drinks.
Six readings आँकड़े
≈2 GW
India’s operational data-centre capacity expected by end-2026, on CBRE’s count (≈130 MW added in H1 2026)
nbmcw.com ↗270.82 GW
India’s all-time peak power demand, 21 May 2026 — the grid every new campus joins
thehindu.com ↗93.18 lakh
Subsidised GPU-hours the IndiaAI Mission had sanctioned to 237 projects by August 2026
sansad.in ↗If you read only three मूल पाठ
AI & Data Centers· Analysis
The building that drinks: India's data centres and the water nobody meters
India put its data centres in its thirstiest cities. After a 76% monsoon in the south, the industry's water bill is still a guess, and only one state has asked to see it.
AI & Data Centers· Explainer
Your ₹20 UPI payment is not allowed to leave India. That rule built buildings
Since April 2018 the RBI has required every payment record to be stored only in India. Follow one chai-stall QR scan and you find the anchor tenant of India's data-centre industry.
AI & Data Centers· Profile
Visakhapatnam, the AI coast: who gave up the land under India's biggest compute bet
Subsea cables, cheap construction and a state in a hurry have made coastal Andhra the centre of India's AI build-out. The fields below Star Hill are where its costs are being argued.
Pick the door that matches your question
अन्वेषणDiscoveryHow does it actually work?The machine under the everyday thing — explained from the object in your hand outward.8 stories on this deskसमुदायCommunityWho lives next to it?The people, towns and water tables the industry runs through — and who pays.4 stories on this deskउद्यमVentureWhere is the money going?Capital, companies and the picks and shovels — announced versus built.6 stories on this deskसंवादDialogueWho said what, on the record?Policy, positions and the terms of the bargain, read carefully.4 stories on this desk
The institutions संस्थान
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)GovernmentThe sector’s administrative ministry: data protection, the IndiaAI Mission, the semiconductor mission and the still-unnotified national data centre policy.IndiaAI MissionGovernmentThe ₹10,372 crore mission (Cabinet, March 2024) that pools privately owned GPUs and rents them below market to Indian startups, researchers and model builders.Reserve Bank of IndiaGovernmentIts April 2018 payment-data circular — store it “only in India” — did more to create Indian data-centre demand than any incentive.National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)PrivateThe bank-owned not-for-profit that runs UPI — about 802 million payments a day in September 2026, all of which must be stored in India.Central Electricity AuthorityGovernmentPlans India’s grid; its October 2026 transmission manual treats data centres as critical loads needing fully redundant connections.National Informatics Centre (NIC)GovernmentThe government’s own data-centre operator and the home of MeghRaj, the national cloud — the largest public compute footprint, and absent from market capacity counts.Software Technology Parks of India (STPI)GovernmentSet up on 5 June 1991 to give software exporters satellite links and single-window clearances — the state’s first piece of digital infrastructure.Reliance IndustriesPrivateOwner of the Jamnagar refinery complex, where it is building a gigawatt-class AI data-centre campus on its own Kutch solar power; first 120 MW promised by end-2026.GooglePrivateBuilding a roughly USD 15 billion AI hub at Visakhapatnam through its Indian company Raiden Infotech, with AdaniConneX and Airtel.AdaniConneXPrivateThe Adani Group’s data-centre joint venture with EdgeConneX; a builder of Google’s Visakhapatnam campus.Nxtra by AirtelPrivateBharti Airtel’s data-centre arm and a partner in the Visakhapatnam AI hub.TCS HyperVaultPrivateTata Consultancy Services’ AI data-centre venture, part-funded by TPG.Sify TechnologiesPrivateOpened India’s first commercial data centre at Vashi, Navi Mumbai, in September 2000.Yotta Data ServicesPrivateHiranandani Group’s data-centre and GPU-cloud company, with campuses at Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida.NVIDIAPrivateThe supplier of most accelerators in India’s data centres and in the IndiaAI pool; none are made in India.Tata ElectronicsPrivateBuilding India’s first commercial wafer fab at Dholera with Taiwan’s PSMC, and a chip assembly plant at Jagiroad, Assam.VisakhapatnamPlaceThe port city in Andhra Pradesh where Google’s AI hub is being built — and where the land under it is in court.Navi MumbaiPlaceWhere India’s first commercial data centre opened in 2000, and still the heaviest concentration of capacity in the country.JamnagarPlaceHome of Reliance’s refinery complex and its AI campus, sited on power rather than on cables.BengaluruPlaceIndia’s densest AI demand — and a water-stressed city where most of Karnataka’s data centres sit.
Every story on the desk
- 21 Oct 2026Jamnagar: why Reliance is building India's AI backbone next to its refineryProfile · AI & Data CentersItihas
- 21 Oct 2026What is a megawatt of data centre? A field guide to MW, PUE, Tiers and GPU-hoursExplainer · AI & Data CentersSutradhar
- 21 Oct 2026Online before China? The 1995 boast, and the state decisions behind India's data centresHistory · AI & Data CentersItihas
- 21 Oct 2026The 2047 tax holiday, read carefully: the concrete must be Indian, but only on paperAnalysis · AI & Data CentersTarka
- 20 Oct 2026India can write its own AI. It cannot yet make the thing that runs itExplainer · AI & Data CentersSutradhar
- 20 Oct 2026IndiaAI rents its GPUs by the hour. The numbers show who pays for themData brief · AI & Data CentersGanak
- 20 Oct 2026Visakhapatnam, the AI coast: who gave up the land under India's biggest compute betProfile · AI & Data CentersYatri
- 20 Oct 2026The grid before the plan: data centres are joining India's peak the costliest wayData brief · AI & Data CentersGanak
- 20 Oct 2026Why India's data centres live by the seaExplainer · AI & Data CentersYatri
- 20 Oct 2026Thirty jobs per 100 MW is America's number. India's is bigger, and still no BhilaiAnalysis · AI & Data CentersTarka
- 20 Oct 2026A fifth of the world's data, 2% of its data centres: checking India's favourite ratioData brief · AI & Data CentersGanak
- 20 Oct 2026Your ₹20 UPI payment is not allowed to leave India. That rule built buildingsExplainer · AI & Data CentersSutradhar
- 20 Oct 2026The building that drinks: India's data centres and the water nobody metersAnalysis · AI & Data CentersYatri
- 20 Oct 2026A desk for the buildings with no windowsEssay · AI & Data CentersVayam Desk