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India's installed data centre capacity has more than quadrupled since 2020 to around 1,575 megawatts (MW), as the country expands its digital infrastructure to support the growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), according to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Installed data centre capacity has increased from 375 MW in 2020 to about 1,575 MW currently, representing a more than four-fold increase over the period, the Ministry said. The expansion comes as India scales up computing infrastructure under the IndiaAI Mission to provide researchers, startups and innovators access to high-performance computing resources. "The IndiaAI Mission has expanded shared compute capacity to 45,000+ Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), as of June 2026," the Ministry said. By August 2026, 237 projects had accessed subsidised AI computing infrastructure, accounting for 93.18 lakh GPU hours. "This provides affordable high-performance computing for AI model development, training, testing and research, lowering entry barriers for Indian researchers, start-ups and innovators," the Ministry said. India's data centre infrastructure is currently concentrated across major technology and commercial hubs, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Gujarat. However, the industry is expanding into newer investment destinations. The Ministry said the data centre industry is "now further expanding in states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh & West Bengal which are coming up with new investment destinations." The expansion in computing infrastructure is also being accompanied by efforts to develop indigenous AI models. The government has selected 20 indigenous foundation model proposals from 506 applications, including 12 Large Multimodal Models and eight Small Language Models. According to the Ministry, the initiative strengthens India's capability to develop AI models suited to "Indian languages, needs and contexts." The country's AI ecosystem is also being supported through AI Kosh, which, as of July 2026, hosted more than 14,000 datasets and 331 AI models for researchers, developers and innovators. The IndiaAI Mission, approved with an outlay of about Rs 10,372 crore, is aimed at building domestic AI capabilities and supporting innovation, economic growth and public-service delivery. The Ministry said the combined expansion of computing infrastructure and AI capabilities is aimed at building a self-reliant and globally competitive technology ecosystem in the country. (ANI)
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