RMZ lines up $35 billion data centre expansion as India’s digital infrastructure race gathers pace

India’s digital infrastructure build-out is set for another major push, with real estate and investment group RMZ planning to sharply expand its data centre capacity over the next five years through a proposed investment of $35 billion. The move underlines how data centres are rapidly emerging as one of the most important pillars of India’s next infrastructure cycle, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and enterprise digitisation.

RMZ, which currently operates about 250 MW of data centre capacity, is targeting a scale-up to 2 GW to 3 GW over the next five years. The company is also in advanced discussions on three new projects that could take its capacity beyond 1 GW in the near term, while it plans to acquire land by the end of this year to support an additional 2 GW of development.

The proposed expansion marks one of the more ambitious bets yet on India’s fast-growing digital infrastructure market. It also reflects a wider shift in infrastructure investment, where data centres are moving from being a niche real estate play to a core long-term asset class tied to the country’s technology, power and urban growth story.

The timing is significant. India’s data centre market has been gaining momentum on the back of strong demand from hyperscalers, cloud providers, financial services firms, e-commerce platforms and now AI-led computing requirements. The government has also sought to strengthen the policy backdrop for the sector. In the Union Budget 2026-27, it announced a tax holiday till 2047 for eligible foreign cloud service providers operating through India-based data centre infrastructure, a move aimed at positioning the country as a global digital infrastructure hub.

RMZ’s plan sits squarely within this larger shift. The company is not only looking at co-location data centres but also at the wider ecosystem around them, including AI factories, power infrastructure, software and digital services. That is important because the economics of the next wave of data centre investment will not depend on buildings alone. Access to reliable electricity, renewable energy tie-ups, transmission connectivity, cooling systems and fibre networks will be just as critical as land and capital.

In many ways, this is what makes the current data centre story different from earlier rounds of commercial real estate investment. Large-scale facilities are power-intensive, capital-heavy and deeply linked to state-level industrial policy. As a result, the next phase of expansion is likely to shape demand across multiple infrastructure segments, from substations and grid upgrades to water systems, logistics and urban services in key digital corridors.

RMZ’s existing capacity has been built through its joint venture with UK-based Colt Data Centre Services, and the latest expansion plans indicate that the partnership could play a bigger role in India’s digital infrastructure build-out. The company has also indicated that a future listing of its data centre business remains a possibility as the platform scales up.

The announcement comes at a time when global technology and infrastructure investors are deepening their India commitments. This week, Amazon said it would invest an additional $13 billion in India by 2030 to strengthen its AI and cloud infrastructure, adding to the broader wave of global capital targeting the country’s digital economy. Alongside domestic groups and specialist operators, these commitments are reinforcing the view that data centres are becoming central to India’s infrastructure investment landscape rather than a side segment of real estate.

For the infrastructure sector, the significance of RMZ’s move goes beyond the headline investment figure. It signals that the next phase of India’s infrastructure growth will increasingly be defined by digital capacity as much as by roads, ports or airports. As AI workloads rise and demand for local data storage and cloud capacity accelerates, the contest to build India’s next generation of digital infrastructure is likely to intensify sharply.