HCLTech Announces $1.5 Bn Investment To Build Maiden AI Data Centre In Odisha

IT major HCLTech has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with its invested company Sarvam AI and the Odisha government to set up an AI data centre within the state. The planned capital outlay for the data centre is ₹14,257 Cr ($1.5 Bn).  The state government is also expected to provide financial assistance for the project. 

The facility, which would be set up in the state’s capital Bhubhnashwar,  would combine its infrastructure and enterprise capabilities with Sarvam’s models to build sector-specific applications for enterprise and government customers, the company added.

Besides, the project, situated in the upcoming Odisha Sovereign AI Park, is expected to support multilingual AI services and local developer ecosystem growth. 

“This is an important milestone in our full-stack AI play and will enable us to serve the large demand for sovereign AI solutions and unlock the scale of our strategic partnership with Sarvam. Odisha offers a progressive policy environment backed by excellent infrastructure and we look forward to working with them in collaboration with Sarvam,” HCLTech managing director and chief executive C Vijayakumar said.

The development comes days after HCLTech proposed its entry into the full-stack AI market. For the same, it intends to make a strategic investment of up to ₹3,500 Cr to establish AI data centers, with the potential to scale to 50MW of capacity.

To note, HCLTech acquired 41,421 equity shares or 10.46% stake in Sarvam for ₹1,427.3 Cr in June, where it led the $234 Mn (about ₹2,210 Cr) investment in the AI startup, at a post-money valuation of $1.5 Bn.

HCLTech is the latest conglomerate to enter the AI race after Reliance Industries and Adani Group announced similar plans to scale in the AI ecosystem. While Adani Group partnered with US-based manufacturing company Jabil Inc to build vertically-integrated AI and data centre infrastructure in June, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani announced the group’s plans to invest up to ₹10 Lakh Cr in AI over the next seven years.

Driving the conglomerates bid is the rapidly expanding AI data centre market, which is emerging within the country at a quiet but steady pace. To put it into perspective, the market size reached a valuation of ₹9.33 Lakh Cr in 2025 and is projected to more than double to ₹20.53 Lakh Cr by 2030.

Amid this boom, major global tech players have also announced plans to set up data centres within the country in the past. For instance, Google has begun constructing a $15 Bn AI data centre hub in Visakhapatnam while Microsoft has also committed $3 Bn to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in India. 

However, the boom also masks structural challenges. 

Despite aggressive expansion plans, operators continue to grapple with high power consumption, limited access to reliable renewable energy, land acquisition hurdles, cooling requirements and rising capital costs.

AI workloads are making data centres significantly more energy-intensive, raising questions over the country’s grid readiness and stainability. And amid this, citizen protests have also broken out in recent times. 

As of now, hundreds of residents in Maharashtra’s Thane are protesting  Amazon’s proposed 422MW data centre, citing fears over noise pollution from 193 backup diesel generators, high electricity demands and tree felling.

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