- Nxtra Data, Bharti Airtel’s data center arm, secures $1 billion in funding, valuing the company at $3.1 billion.
- India’s data center market is rapidly expanding, with global tech giants and private equity firms investing billions to capitalize on AI-driven demand.
- Government incentives and projected fivefold growth in data center capacity by 2030 position India as a leading global data center hub.
NSE:BHARTIARTL, Bharti Airtel, is a major player in India’s telecommunications industry, ranking as the second-largest operator. The company has successfully raised $1 billion for its data center arm, Nxtra Data, with significant backing from global private equity firms such as Alpha Wave, Carlyle, and Anchorage Capital. This investment underscores the increasing global interest in the data center sector, valuing Nxtra Data at approximately $3.1 billion.
Alpha Wave Global is contributing $435 million, Carlyle is investing $240 million, and Anchorage Capital is providing $35 million, with Airtel covering the remaining amount. Gopal Vittal, Airtel’s executive vice chairman, highlights Nxtra’s development of data center networks to cater to the evolving needs of enterprises, hyperscalers, and government clients. Nxtra currently boasts around 300MW of data center capacity, with plans to expand to 1GW, targeting a 25% market share.
The demand for data centers is surging globally, driven by the rapid growth in AI workloads that require substantial computing power and infrastructure. In 2025 alone, over $61 billion was invested in the data center market. Navroz D. Udwadia, co-founder of Alpha Wave Global, emphasizes India’s significant AI opportunity, with platforms like ChatGPT and Claude already seeing meaningful interaction from Indians. He stresses the need for India’s data center capacity to grow to meet the demands of hyperscalers and large language models.
Global interest in India’s data center space is rising sharply, with tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon pledging over $50 billion towards India’s cloud and AI infrastructure in a single day last December. Google also announced a $15 billion investment to establish its largest data center hub outside the U.S. in India. The Indian government’s recent announcement of a 20-year tax exemption for hyperscalers using data centers in the country further enhances India’s attractiveness as a data center hub, especially compared to rivals like Singapore, the UAE, and Ireland.
Kapil Modi, partner at Carlyle India Advisors, expresses confidence in Nxtra’s potential to benefit from India’s long-term digital infrastructure growth. According to a December report by KPMG, India’s total installed data center capacity is expected to exceed 2GW by 2026, up from just over 1GW in 2025, with projections to rise fivefold to more than 8GW by 2030, generating an estimated $30 billion in capital expenditure. Additionally, Yotta Data Services, another Indian data center firm, is investing $2 billion to build an Nvidia-powered AI hub and plans to go public by late 2026 or early 2027 to fund its expansion.
