Tata Communications said Monday it will invest about $450 million over three to five years to lay 10,000 km of high-speed fiber linking India’s major AI data-centre corridors.
Tata Communications announced on Monday that it will spend close to $450 million to build roughly 10,000 kilometres of new long-haul fibre optic cable linking India’s principal artificial-intelligence data-centre corridors.
The company said the network, described as an AI superhighway, will connect cloud providers, global capability centres and other enterprises to clusters of data centres. The first phase will cover the Mumbai–Pune–Hyderabad–Chennai route, with later stages extending to the east coast and western India sites including Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City.
Rupesh Chokshi, chief product and technology officer at Tata Communications, told Mint the investment would be funded from operating cash flows and that the firm expects a 15-to-20 percent return as capacity comes online. He noted an existing order book driven largely by global customers.
Reuters reported the announcement and the 10,000-kilometre figure. Livemint and Bloomberg carried the same investment amount and corridor details. India’s operational data-centre capacity stood at about 1.8 GW in the first half of 2026, with a further 3.86 GW under construction or planned by 2030, according to Cushman & Wakefield figures cited by Livemint.
The project positions Tata Communications to capture demand for low-latency links between data centres as AI workloads grow and data-localisation rules tighten. Chokshi said the company sees a first-mover advantage in inter-data-centre connectivity while competitors focus on building capacity or shorter routes.
If the fibre comes online on schedule, Indian and foreign hyperscalers will gain faster domestic pathways for AI traffic; delays or cost overruns would leave the corridors dependent on existing, more limited infrastructure. The next concrete marker is the start of the Mumbai–Chennai phase within the next three years.
People Sentiments Public Mood: Positive
- Rupesh Chokshi: monetisation would be any industry benchmark 15 to 20% return on investment
- Rupesh Chokshi: We plan to fund it from Tata Communications operating cash flows