Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Tuesday said India is looking to garner investments of over $200 billion for data centers over the next few years as it steps up its ambitions to become a hub of artificial intelligence.
“Today, India is being seen as a trusted AI partner in the Global South that wants open, affordable and development-focused solutions,” Vaishnav told The Associated Press in an email interview. While New Delhi is hosting 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 capitalize on the use of AI is to build infrastructure.
This investment underlines the tech giants’ reliance on India as a key technology and talent base in the global race for AI dominance. For New Delhi, they bring high-value infrastructure and foreign capital on 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 set up an AI hub in the world’s most populous country. Microsoft Corp two months later announced a $17.5 billion investment to develop India’s cloud and AI infrastructure over the next four years.
Amazon.com Inc. has also pledged to invest $35 billion in India by 2030 to expand its business, especially targeting AI-driven digitalization. The cumulative investment is part of the $200 billion investment that is in the pipeline and which New Delhi expects to attract.
The government recently announced a long-term tax holiday for data centers as it hopes to provide policy certainty and attract global capital.
India’s AI pitch
Vaishnav said India’s argument is that AI should deliver measurable impact at scale rather than remain a niche technology.
The government already operates a shared computing facility with more than 38,000 GPUs, allowing startups, researchers and public institutions access to high-end computing without huge upfront costs.
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“AI should not become niche. It should 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.
