Reliance Industries Plans India’s Largest Data Centre Cluster in Andhra Pradesh With ₹1.6 Lakh Crore Investment

The Reliance Industries data centre Andhra Pradesh project is now officially the most talked-about infrastructure story in Indian technology. Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate is reportedly set to invest ₹1.6 lakh crore, more than $17 billion, to build a 1.5-gigawatt data centre cluster and a captive solar battery storage system in Visakhapatnam. If executed as planned, this will be India’s largest data centre cluster, surpassing even Google’s concurrent $15-billion, 1 GW project in the same city.

The timing is striking. The news broke on the very day Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for Google’s AI data centre in Vizag, underlining just how rapidly this coastal city is transforming into South Asia’s most ambitious digital infrastructure hub.

What the ₹1.6 Lakh Crore Covers

The investment splits into two clear parts. Reliance has proposed to invest about ₹1.08 lakh crore in the data centre cluster itself and ₹51,300 crore in a linked renewable energy project. On the clean energy side, the State Investment Promotion Committee cleared a solar project with a total DC panel capacity of 9,000 MW-peak, capable of generating up to 6,600 MW of alternating current. That solar backstop signals Reliance’s awareness that a gigawatt-scale compute facility running on dirty power would face serious environmental and reputational risk.

Three Phases, One Cluster

Reliance plans to develop the giga-scale AI data centre cluster in three phases near Visakhapatnam’s new airport at Bhogapuram. In the first phase, a 500 MW data centre will come up at Polipalli village, with commercial production expected to begin by October 2028. In the second phase, an additional 1 GW of capacity will be developed at Bhogapuram East and West by 2030.

Reliance has sought 935 acres for the cluster, 300 acres for the first phase, 635 acres for the second, plus 1 acre for a cable landing station and 80 acres for a desalination plant. That desalination facility is telling: Reliance is engineering for self-sufficiency, including water for cooling systems, from day one.

How This Fits Reliance’s Bigger AI Story

This project doesn’t arrive out of nowhere. The idea of a dedicated AI arm was first announced by Mukesh Ambani at Reliance’s 48th Annual General Meeting on August 29, 2025. The company said it would set up a new subsidiary focused on building large-scale AI infrastructure, and that vision took shape with the operational launch of Reliance Intelligence, a wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in September 2025.

Separately, Digital Connexion, the joint venture between Reliance, Brookfield Asset Management, and Digital Realty, unveiled plans to invest $11 billion to build a 1 GW AI-native data centre campus on a 400-acre site near Visakhapatnam, to be completed by 2030. The new 1.5 GW cluster reported this week goes beyond even that, cementing Reliance’s position as the dominant force in India’s data infrastructure race.

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Why Andhra Pradesh Is Winning This Race

Under its Data Centre Policy 4.0, Andhra Pradesh offers incentives including 100 per cent reimbursement of state GST on capital goods, a 10 per cent capital subsidy on machinery, and deemed distribution licences for direct energy procurement for projects with a capacity of at least 300 MW. That last point is critical — large data centres need the ability to procure power directly, bypassing state electricity board bottlenecks, and Andhra Pradesh built a regulatory pathway for exactly that.

Visakhapatnam is now attracting a series of data centre investments, including Google, Sify, along with Digital Connexion, and Anant Raj Cloud, and Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh has said the state is targeting a total hosting capacity of 6 GW.

Chief Minister Naidu put it plainly: “Andhra Pradesh is entering a new era of technology-led growth, sustainability, and industrial resurgence.” With Reliance now confirmed as the anchor investor in what will be India’s single largest data centre cluster, that new era has well and truly begun.