Meta, Reliance to build first AI data center in India

Meta is moving its first AI-enabled data center in India to Jamnagar, Gujarat, in a 168-megawatt project with Reliance Industries that underscores how the global race for AI compute is broadening beyond the United States and China. The facility will be built by Reliance and leased by Meta, with room to scale as demand rises.

The structure of the deal matters as much as the size. Meta will not own and operate the site directly; instead, it will lease capacity and keep the option to expand over time. That gives the company flexibility as it tries to secure the infrastructure needed to power its products and future AI ambitions without locking itself into a single buildout path. For Reliance, the project puts one of India’s largest industrial groups at the center of a new class of digital infrastructure.

Jamnagar is not a random location. Reliance has described the site as strategic because of its large campus and access to energy resources, two of the most important inputs for hyperscale AI infrastructure. Data centers that serve advanced AI systems need abundant power, land and room for future expansion, and that combination has become a geopolitical asset as much as a commercial one. India’s role in that map is growing, and the Meta-Reliance project suggests the country is being viewed not just as a market for AI services, but as a place to host the physical backbone of AI itself.

The announcement also builds on a deeper relationship between the two companies. Meta previously made a multibillion-dollar investment in Reliance’s Jio Platforms, and the firms announced a $100 million joint venture in August 2025 to develop enterprise AI solutions for India and overseas markets. That history shows this data center is not a one-off transaction, but the latest step in a partnership that has moved from platforms and software toward the harder problem of compute capacity.

Investor reaction was swift. Reliance shares rose more than 2% after the announcement, a sign that markets see value in the company’s role in the AI infrastructure stack. For India, the bigger signal is that hyperscale AI buildout may increasingly depend on countries that can offer both energy access and political room to diversify supply chains beyond the U.S. and China.