Tata Communications said it will invest ₹4,350 crore to build 10,000 km of AI-ready connectivity infrastructure across India. Announced on October 26, this project aims to support growing demand from data centres. The company said, “We are building on our existing strengths to create one of the most comprehensive platforms.”
Tata Communications said it will invest ₹4,350 crore to build around 10,000 km of AI-ready connectivity infrastructure across India, linking key data centre and artificial intelligence (AI) hubs as demand for high-capacity digital infrastructure grows.
The company said on October 26 that the planned investment of $400–450 million would strengthen its network to support AI workloads, cloud platforms, hyperscalers and enterprises requiring high-speed, low-latency connectivity.
The investment will be funded through operating cash flows, according to the company’s stock-exchange filing.
The initial phase will focus on the Mumbai–Pune–Hyderabad–Chennai corridor, which the company described as one of India’s important AI and hyperscale growth routes.
Subsequent phases will extend connectivity to emerging data centre clusters in the East Coast and western India, including Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar, GIFT City and other strategic locations.
The network is intended to connect major AI and data centre hubs with international cable landing stations, enabling connectivity between India and global AI hubs.
The investment is expected to add around 6 petabits per second (Pbps) of network capacity to Tata Communications’ existing capacity of 1.25 Pbps. The company reported that its existing network capacity utilisation was approximately 70–80%.
The proposed capacity addition is scheduled to be implemented between FY2030 and FY2036, according to the company’s stock exchange filing.
The company said the investment was aimed at meeting demand from global hyperscalers, digital platforms, multinational enterprises, global capability centres and emerging cloud platforms. It expects AI and data centre workloads to increase demand for resilient, high-capacity connectivity alongside computing power and energy availability.
Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, managing director and chief executive officer of Tata Communications, said the data centre-to-data centre connectivity market could evolve into a market exceeding $1 billion over the medium term.
“With our planned investments, we are building on our existing strengths to create one of the most comprehensive data centre connectivity platforms in the market,” he said.
Rupesh Chokshi, executive vice-president and global business head of Network Services at Tata Communications, said AI workloads required networks built for speed, scale and resilience.
The company said it would continue expanding its existing national long-distance and metro network infrastructure to support enterprise and data centre connectivity requirements.
According to a PIB release, India hosts nearly 20% of the world’s data but accounts for only 3% of global data centre capacity. Mumbai and Navi Mumbai form the largest hub, accounting for over 25% of India’s live capacity, while Bengaluru and Hyderabad each account for about 22%. Chennai contributes 13%, followed by Delhi-NCR at 14%, Pune at 6% and Kolkata at 3%.