Meta to lease AI-enabled data center capacity in Reliance’s Jamnagar campus, expands India push

Meta is expanding its physical AI and cloud infrastructure footprint in India, signing an agreement with Reliance Industries to support the development of a new AI-enabled data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The companies said the facility’s first phase will deliver 168 megawatts (MW) of capacity, and that Meta will lease that capacity with options to scale as demand grows.

Meta said the Jamnagar data center is its first AI-enabled data center in India. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, framed the deal as a way to grow AI infrastructure globally while deepening Meta’s long-term investment in India. Meta’s statement links the new capacity to the compute needs behind its products and AI efforts, including efforts it describes as “personal superintelligence” for its user base.

Under the agreement, Reliance will build the data center, while Meta will lease capacity once operational. The announcement also described how power and cooling will be handled: Reliance will power the campus with renewable energy and cool the facility using desalinated seawater. Meta said it will cover the full cost of the energy and water used to support the operations.

The data center is expected to be part of a wider Jamnagar buildout by Reliance that Meta described as one of the largest data center campuses in the world, in a location Reliance is positioning with access to significant energy resources. Meta said the first phase’s 168 MW capacity could be expanded through options to scale.

Meta’s announcement ties the deal to its broader infrastructure program in the region, including connectivity investments. It referenced “Project Waterworth,” described as the world’s longest subsea cable system, as part of the network expansion meant to improve speed and quality of service for India’s users.

The agreement also arrives as Meta continues to broaden its India partnerships beyond connectivity and infrastructure. Meta said its relationship with Reliance spans “connectivity, commerce, and AI innovation,” citing a 2020 investment of $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms, and later efforts that included a joint venture bringing Meta’s open-source AI models to Indian enterprises and developers. The new data center lease agreement is presented as an extension of those efforts into the physical layer that powers AI compute and digital services.

Reliance Chief Mukesh D. Ambani called the partnership a “transformative moment” for India’s digital infrastructure, saying Reliance is building India’s first built-to-suit AI data center for a global technology leader at Meta’s scale. A built-to-suit facility is one designed around a tenant’s requirements, rather than a generic facility that tenants fit into later.

Beyond the Jamnagar lease, Meta said it has contracted nearly 1 gigawatt (GW) of new clean and renewable energy in India through agreements with two clean-energy providers. Meta paired that effort with Reliance’s work on renewable powering of the Jamnagar facility, saying the combined approach is intended to support Meta’s infrastructure with renewable electricity and to help address value chain emissions in the region. Meta also said the move aligns with its stated goal of matching all operations with 100% clean and renewable energy.

Still, several details were not disclosed in the announcement. Meta did not specify the contract’s length, the financial terms of the lease, whether the scaling options are linked to specific MW thresholds or timelines, or which companies will supply the roughly 1 GW of contracted renewable energy. It also did not provide information on when the first 168 MW phase is expected to reach full operational status. Those items will likely matter for investors and customers tracking when Meta’s AI capacity in India can be fully utilized. The pace and cost of power, water logistics, and permitting also remain key variables in data center projects generally. With rapid expansion of India’s data center market over recent years, the region’s demand for electricity, cooling capacity, and grid connectivity is likely to be a continuing constraint and planning focus. Meta’s statement, however, centers on the strategic partnership and infrastructure design rather than a timetable. Looking ahead, market watchers will likely focus on how quickly the first phase comes online, whether Meta exercises additional scaling options, and how the company’s renewable energy contracting progresses alongside data center commissioning.