Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, June 5, 2026, highlighted a major foreign investment commitment by AirTrunk, an Australian hyperscale data centre developer, which has announced plans to invest approximately Rs. 3 lakh crore (USD 30 billion) in India and develop 5 GW of data centre capacity — among the largest proposed digital infrastructure investments in the country's history.

Sharing the announcement on X, the Prime Minister wrote: 'India's digital infrastructure journey is gathering remarkable momentum. AirTrunk has announced plans to invest around Rs. 3 lakh crore ($30 billion) in India, and develop 5 GW of data centre capacity. This is among the largest proposed investments in the country's digital infrastructure.'

Context

AirTrunk specialises in large-scale hyperscale data centre facilities designed to serve cloud computing and artificial intelligence workloads. The company's proposed commitment to India represents a significant vote of confidence in the country's growing digital economy, which has seen rapid expansion in internet users, e-commerce activity, and AI adoption over the past decade.

The scale of the proposed investment — 5 GW of capacity — would substantially expand India's data centre footprint, which has historically lagged behind comparable economies in raw infrastructure terms.

Policy Backdrop

The announcement sits squarely within the framework of the Digital India programme, launched in July 2015, which set out to strengthen national digital connectivity, e-governance, and digital public infrastructure. Over the decade since its launch, the programme has provided a policy anchor for attracting global technology investment.

India has pursued foreign direct investment in digital infrastructure through a combination of policy incentives and data-localisation requirements, seeking to attract global capacity while retaining regulatory oversight. Successive administrations have positioned the country as a preferred destination for hyperscale operators serving the Asia-Pacific region.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of the proposed investment would include cloud service providers, domestic and multinational data centre operators, and the broader ecosystem of technology companies that rely on low-latency, high-capacity infrastructure. Increased data centre capacity also supports India's ambitions in artificial intelligence, where compute availability is a critical constraint.

State governments are expected to play a key role in enabling the rollout, particularly around land acquisition and power supply — two of the most significant bottlenecks for large-scale data centre development. A 5 GW buildout would require substantial dedicated power infrastructure, likely drawing attention to renewable energy sourcing policies at the state level.

What's Next

The immediate focus will be on rollout timelines and the identification of specific sites for the proposed data centre parks. Analysts and industry observers will watch for accompanying state-level announcements on power allocation, land policy, and regulatory clearances that would convert the proposed investment into operational capacity.

If executed at the announced scale, the AirTrunk commitment would mark a structural shift in India's digital infrastructure landscape, reinforcing the country's position as a major hub for cloud and AI workloads across the Indo-Pacific region.