$300 billion AI bet: Can India power its data centre boom?

India’s ambition to become a global artificial intelligence powerhouse, backed by reports of nearly $300 billion in AI-linked investment commitments, is setting off a second, less discussed race — one for electricity, water and transmission infrastructure.

The country’s installed data centre capacity has already expanded from about 520 MW in 2020 to 1.5 GW by mid-2025, and is projected to reach 4.5–9 GW by 2030, according to estimates by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). That translates into an additional 3–7.5 GW of IT load within five years — a scale that will test cluster-level grids in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, NCR and Bengaluru.