Tata Communications plans $450 million AI fibre network across India

Tata Communications will invest close to $450 million to build a 10,000-km high-speed fibre network connecting India's artificial intelligence (AI) data centre corridors and key business hubs, as the company looks to meet growing demand for connectivity from cloud providers and enterprises.The company disclosed the investment in a stock exchange filing on Monday, October 26, saying the proposed expansion would add around 6 petabits per second (Pbps) of network capacity. The additional capacity is planned to be added between FY2030 and FY2036.The investment will be funded through operating cash flows, according to the filing submitted to the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and BSE.The planned network, which the company has described as an “AI Super Highway”, will connect data centre clusters with hyperscalers, cloud service providers, global capability centres (GCCs), banks and other enterprises that require high-speed, reliable data connections. THREE-PHASE EXPANSION PLANTata Communications plans to roll out the network in three phases. The first phase will cover the Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Chennai corridor, which the company identified as one of India's key routes for AI and hyperscale growth.Subsequent phases will expand connectivity across the east coast and western India's data centre ecosystems, including Visakhapatnam (Vizag), Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City. The expansion is aimed at connecting India's key AI and data centre hubs with international cable landing stations, enabling connectivity between domestic facilities and major global AI hubs.In its press release included with the stock exchange filing, Tata Communications said the investment would strengthen India's position as a global AI and cloud connectivity gateway and help meet demand from hyperscalers, digital platforms, multinational companies and emerging cloud platforms.NETWORK CAPACITY TO INCREASETata Communications currently has 1.25 Pbps of network capacity, with utilisation at around 70-80%, according to the exchange filing. The proposed addition of approximately 6 Pbps would significantly expand its capacity to handle growing data traffic.The company said its existing network infrastructure includes more than 500,000 km of subsea optical fibre network and over 200,000 km of terrestrial fibre. The planned expansion will build on this infrastructure to support growing demand for AI workloads and cloud services.Commenting on the investment, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, MD and CEO of Tata Communications, said the company sees an opportunity in the data centre-to-data centre connectivity market, which it believes could evolve into a market exceeding $1 billion over the medium term.“With our planned investments, we are building on our existing strengths to create one of the most comprehensive data centre connectivity platforms in the market, positioning us to capture this significant growth opportunity,” he said.Rupesh Chokshi, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Executive Vice President and Global Business Head – Network Services at Tata Communications, said AI requires a network capable of supporting speed, scale and resilience.“The AI economy needs more than compute. It needs a network built for speed, scale and resilience,” Chokshi said.INVESTMENT COMES AMID RISING AI AND CLOUD DEMANDTata Communications said India's data centre industry is expected to expand as cloud adoption, AI deployment and enterprise demand for high-capacity digital infrastructure increase.The company will continue expanding its existing national long-distance and metro network alongside the new fibre infrastructure to support current enterprise and data centre requirements.The planned investment is part of its broader effort to build connectivity infrastructure for next-generation AI workloads and strengthen links between Indian data centres and global digital infrastructure.The proposed capacity addition is planned over several years, with the filing specifying FY2030 to FY2036 as the period for adding the additional capacity.- Ends