Adani and Google Plan Gigawatt-Scale Data Centre in India

Adani Group and Google have announced plans for a gigawatt-scale data centre campus in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh - a partnership that would rank among the largest data centre developments ever conceived globally. The project is part of Adani's staggering $100 billion infrastructure investment plan targeting 5 GW of data centre capacity by 2035, a target that would make Adani one of the five largest data centre operators in the world if achieved.

Google's involvement extends well beyond the physical campus. The partnership includes the America-India Connect infrastructure project, which encompasses new subsea cable capacity and terrestrial fibre networks providing high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity between the US and Indian data centre markets. This is strategically critical: India's international bandwidth has historically been a bottleneck for cloud services, and direct submarine cable connections from India to Google's US data centre regions would dramatically improve performance for Indian enterprises using Google Cloud Platform.

The Visakhapatnam location leverages several Adani Group advantages that no other Indian data centre developer can match. Adani Ports operates India's largest private port, providing logistical infrastructure for importing the massive quantities of equipment needed to build gigawatt-scale facilities. Adani Power is one of India's largest private power generators, potentially providing behind-the-meter generation that bypasses the country's sometimes unreliable grid. And Adani Green Energy is building one of the world's largest renewable energy portfolios, which could supply clean power to the data centre campus.

India's data centre market is experiencing explosive growth that has attracted attention from virtually every major global operator. The country's 1.4 billion population is undergoing rapid digital transformation, with internet penetration growing from 35% to over 55% in the past five years. The Indian government's data localisation requirements - which mandate that financial, healthcare, and government data remain within Indian borders - have created a structural demand driver that can only be served by domestic capacity. Major operators including Yotta, NTT, STT, Nxtra (Airtel), and now Adani are racing to build capacity.

The scale of Adani's 5 GW ambition deserves scrutiny. Five gigawatts is roughly equivalent to the entire current data centre capacity of Northern Virginia - the world's largest market - being built from scratch in India over a decade. At an estimated cost of $8-10 million per MW for Indian construction (lower than the $11.3 million US average due to lower labour and materials costs), the 5 GW programme would require $40-50 billion in capital investment. Even for the Adani Group, with its diversified infrastructure portfolio, this represents a bet of historic proportions on India's digital future.