Reliance commits $110B to gigawatt-scale AI data centers in India

India’s AI story is increasingly less about models and more about concrete: land, power, cooling water, and the quiet conversion of “innovation” into utility-scale infrastructure.

Reliance Industries chair Mukesh Ambani used the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi to unveil a ₹10 trillion (about $110 billion) plan to build AI computing infrastructure over seven years, according to TechCrunch. The package includes “gigawatt-scale” data centers, a nationwide edge-compute network, and AI services tied into Reliance’s Jio telecom stack. Ambani said construction is already underway in Jamnagar, Gujarat, with more than 120 megawatts expected online in the second half of 2026.

This comes on top of other domestic megaplans. TechCrunch notes Adani Group has floated roughly $100 billion for AI data centers, while the Indian government expects more than $200 billion in AI infrastructure spending over the next two years. OpenAI, meanwhile, is partnering with Tata Group to develop about 100 megawatts of AI capacity with ambitions to scale to 1 gigawatt.

Business Insider’s reporting usefully punctures the “cloud” metaphor: data centers are the most visible, least deniable footprint of the AI boom. They also externalize costs—economic and environmental—into local grids and communities. BI points to increasingly exotic financing structures, from 100-year bonds to securitization, spreading risk far beyond the companies selling the AI narrative. If your utility bill rises, congratulations: you may already be underwriting someone else’s compute.

Ambani framed the build-out as technological sovereignty—India “cannot afford to rent intelligence”—and argued compute scarcity is the key bottleneck. That’s a compelling entrepreneur’s pitch. It’s also an industrial policy pitch in disguise: compute becomes the chokepoint, and whoever controls megawatt-hours and interconnects controls the next layer of the economy.

Then there’s the labor story. Business Insider reports OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that some firms are “AI washing” layoffs—blaming AI for cuts they would have made anyway—while predicting real displacement will become obvious in coming years. The juxtaposition is neat: the same executives who promise frictionless productivity gains are simultaneously building physical fortresses that require massive capital, regulatory permissions, and grid priority.

The strategic question isn’t whether India will get data centers; it’s who gets to use them. When compute becomes scarce, expensive, and tied to regulated infrastructure, the winners are incumbents with balance sheets, lawyers, and political relationships. Startups get the privilege of “innovating” inside someone else’s walled garden.

India is marketing itself as the world’s compute refinery. The West is happy to outsource capex and, often, regulatory risk. What’s left to negotiate is the price: whether this turns into competitive infrastructure or a licensed utility where access is rationed by committees and conglomerates—just with better branding.