Meta signs its first India data-centre deal, leasing a 168MW AI facility from Reliance

Meta has agreed to lease a 168-megawatt, AI-ready data centre in India from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, its first such facility in the country. Reliance will build the site in Jamnagar, Gujarat, and Meta will lease it with an option to scale, the companies said on Tuesday.

“This world-class facility in Jamnagar will help us scale our AI infrastructure globally while deepening our long-term investment in India’s economy,” Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said. Meta frames the site as part of its push toward what it calls “personal superintelligence”.

The data centre will run on renewable energy and use desalinated seawater for cooling, with Meta covering the full cost of the power and water. Jamnagar, where Reliance is building one of the world’s largest data-centre campuses, sits near undersea cable landings and Jio’s fibre network. The 168MW is a first phase, with room to grow.

Why hyperscalers are heading to India

The deal deepens a partnership that began with Meta’s $5.7bn investment in Reliance’s Jio Platforms in 2020, followed by a joint venture to bring Meta’s open-source AI models to Indian businesses. It also lands amid a wider rush: more than $400bn flowed into India’s AI ecosystem over the past year, most of it into data centres and the power to run them.

Meta runs vast compute in the US, from a $200bn Louisiana campus to a $21bn CoreWeave deal, but India offers cheaper land, available power, and a billion-plus users. The pull is partly a push: US and European grids are straining under AI load, with utilities planning $1.4tn of spending, while India’s capacity is booming.

To power the buildout cleanly, Meta also contracted nearly 1GW of Indian renewables, 837MW from CleanMax and 88MW from Fourth Partner Energy. The open question is whether that keeps pace. Running a 168MW site, with room to grow, on renewables and desalinated water is the pitch, but India’s grid and water systems are under their own strain. Whether Jamnagar stays green as Meta scales it is the test ahead.