Meta announced on June 9, local time, that it had reached an agreement with Reliance Industries to build and lease its first AI data center in India in Jamnagar, Gujarat, India, to serve Meta’s rapidly growing local user base. This project marks an important expansion of the strategic partnership between Meta and Reliance, and is also seen as a key measure for Meta to increase its long-term investment in India, one of the most dynamic digital markets in the world.
According to the agreement, Reliance will build a large-scale data center park in Jamnagar. In the first phase, it will build a data center facility with a capacity of 168 MW for Meta, which will be leased by Meta and retain the option of further expansion. The data center will be powered by renewable energy and cooled by a desalination system, with all energy and water costs borne by Meta to reduce the environmental impact of facility operations. Meta said that this investment is an important milestone in the expansion of its global infrastructure and will provide computing power support for its products and AI capabilities to help promote the vision of "personal super intelligence" for global users.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement that the company is pleased to partner with Reliance to build the first AI-enabled data center in India. This world-class facility in Jamnagar will help Meta expand its AI infrastructure globally while further deepening long-term investment in the Indian economy. Meta pointed out that India’s rapidly developing digital economy, large user base and long-term cooperative relationship with Reliance make the country an ideal location for the company to increase investment in infrastructure.
Reliance emphasized that cooperation with Meta will be an important opportunity to promote the upgrade of India's digital infrastructure. Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, said tailor-made AI data centers for global technology giants like Meta show India's readiness to play a key role in the global AI race. He said that Reliance is committed to building world-class digital infrastructure to support the next generation of AI innovation, not only to serve India but also to the global market.
According to the two parties, Jamnagar will be built into one of the world's largest data center parks, relying on local abundant energy resources to provide stable computing power guarantee for advanced AI infrastructure. Combined with Meta's existing investment in network infrastructure, including projects such as "Project Waterworth", which is known as the world's longest submarine optical cable system, the new facility will strengthen the region's international connectivity capabilities and provide Indian users with a higher-speed and more reliable service experience.
This data center collaboration is the latest development in a multi-year partnership between Meta and Reliance. Back in 2020, Meta invested approximately $5.7 billion in Reliance-owned Jio Platforms to accelerate the construction of network connectivity in India and support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Since then, the two parties have introduced Meta's open source AI model into the Indian enterprise and developer ecosystem through a joint venture project to promote local application innovation in the field of AI. Meta said that this data center agreement will extend cooperation to the underlying physical infrastructure level that supports its products and AI capabilities.
While advancing the construction of data centers, Meta also announced the signing of renewable energy purchase agreements with CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy, two leading clean energy companies in India, with a total scale of nearly 1 GW to further support its infrastructure energy needs in India. Among them, the cooperation with CleanMax will bring 837 MW of new solar and wind power projects to Rajasthan and Karnataka, bringing the cumulative announced cooperation capacity of the two parties to more than 900 MW; the agreement with Fourth Partner Energy covers the construction of a total of 88 MW of solar and wind power projects in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Meta said that coupled with Reliance's renewable energy support for the Jamnagar data center, these new projects demonstrate its long-term commitment to India's clean energy ecosystem, help ensure that the company's expanding infrastructure in India is mainly powered by renewable energy, and help combat the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its value chain in the region. Meta reiterates that its global goal is to match all operations with 100% clean renewable energy, and this series of cooperation in India is a concrete manifestation of this goal in the local area.