Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, is planning to build what could become the world’s largest data centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, according to a report by Bloomberg. The facility, expected to boast a total capacity of three gigawatts, would be a huge move in India’s tech landscape, easily outpacing current global benchmarks by a big margin. For comparison, the largest operational data centres today, mostly located in the United States, are under one gigawatt.
To support this ambitious move, Reliance is procuring advanced AI semiconductors from Nvidia Corporation. These high-performance chips are essential for the complex computations required by AI-driven tools, such as ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms.
The timing of Mukesh Ambani’s move is no coincidence. Globally, tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have been spending billions of dollars on expanding data centre capacities to keep up with the high demand for AI services. Earlier this week, a consortium including OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle announced plans to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure under a project called Stargate.
If this initiative goes ahead as planned, Ambani’s Jamnagar facility will not only surpass existing data centre capacities but also give India a competitive edge in the growing AI market. As of now, India’s total data centre capacity — just like the USA — is under one gigawatt. Tripling this capacity in one project would be a major milestone for the country, potentially accelerating its AI development.
While the scale of the project is unprecedented, so is its estimated cost. Building such a massive facility could require an investment of $20 to $30 billion, according to industry estimates. Although Reliance Industries has about $26 billion in cash reserves, funding such a project would still be a challenge. The company has not commented on the reports yet.
Ambani’s strategy appears similar to his approach in the telecom sector, where Reliance Jio disrupted the market by offering services at affordable prices. This time, the aim is to lower the cost of AI inferencing — the computational process behind running AI models — which can be prohibitively expensive for startups and established firms alike.
Jamnagar, already the site of Reliance’s oil refining and petrochemical operations, will now play a central role in the company’s push for renewable energy and AI. The data centre is expected to be powered largely by green energy, with Reliance building solar, wind, and green hydrogen projects nearby. However, experts point out that maintaining a continuous energy supply for such a massive facility may still require fossil fuels or large battery storage systems. Ambani has made it clear that his ultimate goal is to make AI accessible to everyone in India. “We want to offer the lowest AI inferencing costs in the world, making AI affordable and available to all,” he said last year.