Our Bureau
Mumbai
Tata Communications plans to invest up to $450 million over the next three to five years to build a 10,000-km fibre network connecting India’s major artificial intelligence (AI) hubs and data centres, targeting a 30-40% share of the country’s data centre-to-data centre connectivity market.
The proposed “AI Super Highway” will provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to support growing demand from AI applications, cloud computing platforms and enterprises. The company estimates that India’s data centre connectivity market could exceed $1 billion over the medium term.
The investment will be deployed in phases, depending on traffic projections, capacity requirements and the pace of data centre development. The company is in advanced discussions with prospective customers but has not announced contracts for the proposed network.
The first phase will connect Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai, creating a key connectivity corridor for data centres and hyperscale infrastructure. Subsequent phases will expand the network towards Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Gujarat’s GIFT City and Jamnagar.
The network is designed to provide approximately 7.2 petabytes of capacity, enabling faster and more reliable data transfers between computing facilities. It will also connect domestic data centre clusters to international cable landing stations and Tata Communications’ global network backbone.
The infrastructure is expected to serve hyperscalers, neocloud providers, technology companies, software-as-a-service providers and AI laboratories. As AI adoption accelerates, reliable connectivity between data centres is becoming increasingly important for training models and running AI applications.
The investment builds on Tata Communications’ existing network, which spans more than 500,000 km of subsea optical fibre and over 200,000 km of terrestrial fibre.
The proposed expansion underscores the growing importance of digital infrastructure as India strengthens its position in the global AI and cloud computing ecosystem.