As global investors race to fund the infrastructure supporting the AI boom, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s CPP Investments committed ₹70 billion (about US$741 million) to Indian data center operator CtrlS, betting on India’s growing role in building cloud and AI infrastructure globally.
Under the partnership announced on Wednesday, CPP Investments will invest ₹40 billion (about $423 million) to acquire an 8.2% stake in CtrlS and will contribute ₹30 billion (about $317 million) to the joint venture to develop hyperscale data center campuses in India.
CPP Investments will own 48% of the joint venture, while CtrlS will own the remaining 52%, the companies said in a joint statement.
Established in 2007, CtrlS More than 15 data centers operate across India. The Hyderabad-based company is expanding its footprint to meet growing demand from cloud providers, enterprises and AI workloads.
India has become a key destination for data center and artificial intelligence investments as global technology companies and investors ramp up spending to meet growing computing demand. Including companies Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAIand Uber operators have announced investments in the country in recent months as they rapidly expand their capabilities in a broader global race to build AI infrastructure.
“As one of the world’s fastest-growing digital markets, India represents an important pillar of our global data center strategy,” Max Biagos, global head of real assets at CPP Investments, said in a statement.
CPP Investments, Canada’s largest pension investor, has been investing in India since 2009, with nearly $20 billion in net assets in the country as of March 31, making it one of the largest foreign institutional investors in the market.
The investment builds on CPP Investments’ broader push into digital infrastructure. The pension fund said it has been investing in the data center sector since 2017 and has built a portfolio of assets and joint ventures in key markets around the world.
Sridhar Pinnapureddy, founder and CEO of CtrlS, said the partnership will help CtrlS expand capabilities and build an infrastructure tailored for AI workloads.
The CPP-CtrlS deal is the latest in a series of investments targeting India’s data center sector. Backed by Blackstone earlier this month AirTrunk It said it would invest $30 billion to create five gigawatts of data center capacity in India by 2030. Metameanwhile, last week partnered with Reliance Industries on a 168-megawatt AI-powered data center in the western state of Gujarat.
New Delhi has sought to position India as a global hub for digital infrastructure through a number of policy measures. tax incentives for foreign cloud providers On outsourced services by 2047, provided these workloads are managed from data centers located in the country.
Indian conglomerates have also accelerated their expansion plans to seize the opportunity. Adani Group and Tata Consultancy Services It is among the companies introducing large data center projects aimed at supporting AI and cloud workloads. In 2023, CtrlS He announced plans to invest $2 billion to expand its data center footprint in India in six years.
India’s growing role in AI infrastructure has yet to be matched by similar progress in the development of frontier AI models. There are several startups in the country creating indigenous AI models, including SarvamMost of the core AI technology used by Indian companies It continues to be provided by US firms.
The rapid construction of data centers is also expected to increase pressure on electricity and water resources some difficulties This can accompany India’s ambitions to become a major AI infrastructure hub.
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