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Everyone wants a bigger piece of the AI pie. And now, Gujarat's Jamnagar could soon become home to a major AI-powered data centre.
What's brewing: Reliance and Meta have teamed up to build Meta's first AI-enabled data centre in India, as the Facebook and Instagram parent races to expand its computing infrastructure amid the global AI boom.
Stock action: Reliance gained on the back of this development.
Here's how it works: the company will build a 168-megawatt data centre in Jamnagar, which Meta will lease once it's ready. Reliance will handle everything from design and construction to power supply, connectivity and day-to-day operations. The project is expected to be completed within two years.
The partnership is backed by an initial investment of ₹855 crore, with Reliance contributing 70% and Meta funding the remaining 30%.
But this isn't a new relationship.
Back in 2020, Meta invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms for a 9.99% stake. More recently, the two companies worked together to bring Meta's open-source Llama AI models to Indian businesses and developers.
So, why India: simply put, India is one of Meta's most important markets.
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp together have more than 1 billion monthly users in the country, making it a critical market for the company's next phase of AI growth.
And Meta isn't alone. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had revealed that India is OpenAI's second-largest market, with more than 100 million users.
OpenAI has already partnered with Reliance to bring conversational search to JioHotstar, is working with Tata Group on AI-ready data centre capacity, and is expected to become a customer of TCS's data centre business.
The global AI investment boom is accelerating. Corporate AI investments more than doubled from $253 billion in 2024 to nearly $582 billion in 2025, driven by a surge in private funding, acquisitions and infrastructure spending.
The bigger picture: global AI companies are increasingly treating India as a key battleground for growth. Between its massive user base, growing digital infrastructure and government support, the country is becoming one of the most important AI markets in the world.
In fact, India is expected to attract more than $200 billion in AI-related investments over the next two years.
And let's not forget one of the most viral and unexpected moments from India's five-day AI Summit earlier this year: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei seemingly refusing to hold hands during a group photo, creating an awkward crossover that quickly took over social media.
