AI Power-Play: India Data Center Capacity Could Surge to 19-23 GW by 2030
OmniScience Insights Labs has released its latest report on "AI Power-Play: India Data Center Capacity Could Surge to 19-23 GW by 2030, Power Ecosystem: A Hidden Way to Play AI in India." The report examines how artificial intelligence, cloud computing, digital public infrastructure and data localization are driving one of the largest digital infrastructure buildouts in India's history.
As India emerges as one of the world's largest generators of digital data, accounting for approximately 15-20% of global data generation, AI adoption is expected to drive a significant expansion in data centre infrastructure. Using a proprietary first-principles framework, OmniScience estimates that India could require 19-23 GW of operational data centre capacity by 2030, compared with only around 1.6 GW today, representing one of the largest digital infrastructure expansion opportunities in the country.
"While reviewing global AI infrastructure estimates, we found that many widely cited forecasts pointed to trillions of dollars of investment but provided limited transparency on how those numbers were derived. That prompted us to go back to first principles. We independently estimated traditional data centre, AI training and AI inference requirements, built our own capacity framework and then translated those estimates to India. This report is the outcome of that bottom-up exercise and, more importantly, identifies where we believe investors can participate in this structural opportunity."- Vikas Gupta, CEO and Chief Investment Strategist at OmniScience Capital.
Based on these capacity estimates, the report projects that building India's AI infrastructure could require approximately US$350-435 billion of cumulative investment by 2030. Around US$160 billion of investments have already been announced or are currently under implementation, highlighting the strong momentum behind India's emergence as a global AI infrastructure hub.
The Non-Compute Infrastructure underlying AI
The report argues that the opportunity extends far beyond data centre developers. Every additional megawatt of AI infrastructure requires a vast non-compute ecosystem comprising electricity generation, transmission, transformers, switchgear, industrial cables, backup power, cooling systems, HVAC, networking, security, building automation and other facility infrastructure. Together, this ecosystem spans 11–12 infrastructure sub-sectors, providing a broad and diversified opportunity to participate in India's AI infrastructure buildout.
Power-Play in AI: Hidden Opportunity
The report estimates that operating 19-23 GW of data centre capacity could require approximately 150-170 TWh of electricity annually by 2030, equivalent to roughly 6% of India's projected electricity demand and could rise to 8% by 2035, (~9% of India's 2025 electricity consumption of 1,707 TWh). This highlights that AI is becoming as much an energy story as a technology story.
The ecosystem includes nearly 230+ listed companies across India's power value chain alone, with additional opportunities emerging across cooling, networking, security and facility infrastructure. This diversified ecosystem provides investors multiple avenues to participate as capital rotates across different phases of the AI infrastructure buildout.
"As one of the world's fastest-growing digital economies, India holds immense potential in AI data centres. While domestic frontier AI model developers and semiconductor players are still emerging, the most direct path to participating in the AI revolution today is through non-compute infrastructure. Every AI workload ultimately depends on electricity and the infrastructure that delivers it. As India's AI infrastructure scales, companies across utilities, transmission, and electrical equipment will likely emerge as key beneficiaries of this long-term structural trend."- Ashwini Shami, President & Chief Portfolio Manager at OmniScience Capital.
The report concludes that while AI infrastructure creates opportunities across multiple industries, the power ecosystem stands out as one of the largest long-term beneficiaries. As India builds the physical backbone required to support AI, companies involved in enabling, distributing and managing electricity are likely to play a central role in this structural investment cycle.
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