Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is in talks with American technology giants including Meta Platforms Inc. and Google for partnerships in his fast-expanding data center business, according to people familiar with the matter.
Walmart Inc.'s Flipkart is also engaged in talks with the tycoon and the Adani Group is exploring sites across Indian states for the centers, said the people, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are private.
The talks, part of a sweeping $100 billion digital infrastructure push by Adani, seeks to position his port-to-power group as the supplier of both land and renewable energy needed for hyperscale facilities, resources critical to artificial intelligence and cloud services worldwide.
Specific sites for the new facilities have yet to be finalized, and the discussions remain preliminary, the people added. Still, the move underscores intensifying competition for digital infrastructure in India.
India's landmass and fast-growing economy have made it a magnet for overseas investors and technology companies seeking scale. The surge in interest is part of a global race to build such facilities, even as China has warned of oversupply. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Joe Tsai last year cautioned that much of the development there is duplicative.
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AdaniConnex Pvt., a joint venture between Adani Enterprises Ltd. and EdgeConneX, in October announced a partnership with Google, which is investing about $15 billion to build India's largest AI infrastructure hub at Visakhapatnam. The current negotiations mark a fresh phase of investment beyond those commitments, the people said.
Representatives for Adani Group, Meta and Walmart declined to comment. A spokesperson for Alphabet Inc, which owns Google, said the company had no new investments to talk about.
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd., through its Digital Connexion venture, signed an $11 billion pact to build data centers at Visakhapatnam in November, while Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. secured $1 billion from TPG Inc. to accelerate its own efforts.
Global players are also stepping up. Amazon.com Inc. plans to invest $12.7 billion on cloud infrastructure in India through 2030, while ChatGPT-creator OpenAI is seeking to set up a 1-gigawatt data center in the region.
(Disclaimer: New Delhi Television is a subsidiary of AMG Media Networks Limited, an Adani Group Company.)
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