Reliance Industries of India announced on July 24 that it will invest up to 10 billion Indian rupees ($122.24 million) in building data centres in the country with Brookfield Infrastructure of Canada.
The announcement comes at a time when India's data centre capacity is expected to grow exponentially as more people connect to the internet.
Reliance will initially invest approximately 3.78 billion rupees in Mercury Holdings SG Pte units, which is a joint venture (JV) between Brookfield Infrastructure and the United States-based real estate investment trust Digital Realty. The joint venture is currently constructing data centres in Chennai and Mumbai.
When necessary, Mukesh Ambani's company has committed to investing the remaining 6.22 billion rupees in equity and debt securities of the JV's units.
According to the company, Reliance will own 33.33 percent of each of the JV's Indian units and will become an equal partner in the venture, which will be known as Digital Connexion.
According to a report by investment bank Avendus Capital, India's data centre market is expected to grow 40% per year and attract $5 billion in investment by 2025.
With Reliance's entry, the Indian data centre space is also heating up, as Adani Enterprises' joint venture has already raised $213 million to fund under-construction data centres.