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AirTrunk, the Blackstone-backed data center operator, said Friday it would invest $30 billion in India by 2030, adding to a wave of commitments from technology and infrastructure groups seeking to expand the country's IT capacity.

The Australian company announced it would develop a new 5 gigawatt data center capacity in India, one of the most significant commitments to the South Asian nation's digital infrastructure sector. AirTrunk entered India earlier this year through the acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra.

AirTrunk's commitment highlights India's growing appeal as a destination for AI infrastructure, as technology companies and investors look for new geographies to expand their computing capacity. According to research firm Bernstein, the country's data center capacity is expected to reach 8 GW by 2030, up from around 1.5 GW today.

The Indian government has also taken steps to attract investments in AI infrastructure. Earlier this year, New Delhi offered foreign cloud providers tax exemptions until 2047 on services sold abroad if those workloads are run from Indian data centers.

AirTrunk has already started laying the groundwork for its expansion in the country. Earlier this week, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in an article on The company already has a development pipeline of around 600 MW in Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

AirTrunk did not respond to questions about whether the proposed Raigad project would account for most of the planned 5 GW capacity or whether it plans to carry out additional developments elsewhere in India.

The announcement follows a meeting between AirTrunk CEO Robin Khuda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said in an article on X that the planned investment would help strengthen India's position as a global hub for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

AirTrunk joins a growing list of companies investing in the country's infrastructure. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Uber announced major investments in cloud and AI infrastructure, while Indian companies Reliance Industries, Adani Group and TCS outlined ambitious plans to increase data center capacity.

However, data centers require large amounts of electricity, water and land, and industry executives and analysts have pointed to resource issues as a potential bottleneck, particularly when it comes to electricity.

Deloitte estimates that building data centers in the Asia-Pacific region could require tens of terawatt hours of additional electricity by the end of the decade.

AirTrunk's investment thesis relies on government support, a deep pool of technical talent and access to renewable energy, Khuda said.