June 10 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms will lease an AI-ready data centre to be built by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, the U.S. tech major said on Wednesday, deepening ties with the Indian conglomerate.
The deal comes at a time when India has seen a surge in hyperscale data centre builds led by U.S. cloud majors such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet's Google, as New Delhi seeks to draw in investment in AI.
In February, Reliance committed about $110 billion and Adani outlined $100 billion in investments to position India as an AI hub. The government has given foreign companies a more than 20 year tax break on using local data centres.
Meta is already a major investor in Reliance's IPO-bound Jio Platforms and last year formed a joint venture to develop AI tools for enterprises using its Llama models.
Under the latest deal, Reliance will build a 168‑MW data centre in Jamnagar in western India, which is home to its flagship energy complex. The project, running on energy capable of powering about 150,000 homes, could be scaled up.
The two companies have partnered for years, and Jamnagar offers a strategic edge with ready access to power, water and infrastructure at lower cost, Deven Choksey, managing director, advisory firm DRChoksey FinServ in Mumbai, said.
"Reliance has the infrastructure and Meta has the AI expertise," he said.
The Indian conglomerate is at an advantage as it can draw energy from its renewable-power assets in the Jamnagar complex, reducing the data centre's dependence on costlier grid power.
Meta did not provide financial terms of the deal or a target date.
India's data center market is projected to nearly double to $13.11 billion by 2034, fueled by digitalisation, cloud adoption and rising AI workloads, according to consulting firm IMARC Group.
($1 = 95.3500 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur, Abhinav Parmar and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
