Digital Connexion Pledges $11B to Build 1GW AI Data‑Center Campus in Visakhapatnam by 2030
Digital Connexion — a joint venture of Reliance Industries, Brookfield Asset Management and Digital Realty Trust — has committed $11 billion by 2030 to build AI‑native data centers in southern India. The JV signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board to develop a 400‑acre, 1 gigawatt (GW) flagship campus in Visakhapatnam designed for high‑performance AI and machine‑learning workloads, featuring advanced cooling, energy‑efficient designs and integration of renewable power. This expands Digital Connexion’s existing Chennai campus and a 40 MW project in Mumbai. Andhra Pradesh reports a regional pipeline of about 5.5 GW and aims to supply green energy to such facilities. Analysts (CBRE, Goldman Sachs) forecast India’s data‑center investment boom and rising global AI capacity, with CBRE estimating over $100 billion in India data‑center investment by 2027 and Goldman Sachs projecting ~122 GW global capacity by 2030. The announcement highlights infrastructure and environmental constraints — notably rising power and cooling demand and significant freshwater needs — which could increase demand for power, grid upgrades and hardware supply chains. For crypto traders: this is broadly bullish for infrastructure‑adjacent sectors relevant to blockchain and crypto (cloud providers, AI services, data‑center equities and hardware suppliers), as large AI and cloud campuses underpin future demand for compute and hosting used by exchanges, layer‑1 blockchains and node operators. Key trading facts: $11B commitment by 2030; 1 GW initial Visakhapatnam build on 400 acres; partners Reliance/Brookfield/Digital Realty; emphasis on AI‑native infrastructure, renewables and a 5.5 GW Andhra Pradesh pipeline.
Bullish
The announcement is bullish for crypto‑relevant infrastructure and services. Large AI‑native data centers increase long‑term demand for high‑performance compute, colocation and cloud hosting — services used by crypto exchanges, validator nodes and blockchain indexing providers. The $11B commitment and 1GW flagship raise demand expectations for servers, GPUs, networking equipment and power/cooling solutions, benefiting hardware suppliers and data‑center operators whose equities or service tokens are tradable proxies. Short term, price moves in listed infrastructure and cloud stocks or related crypto infrastructure tokens may be driven by risk‑on flows and re‑rating of growth expectations; volatility is likely around financing and permitting milestones. Long term, the project underpins sustained capacity growth in India, improving on‑shore hosting options and potentially reducing latency and operational risk for crypto projects targeting Indian users. Offsetting risks include power and water constraints, regulatory or construction delays and the multi‑year timeline to realize the full $11B spend — these could temper near‑term upside but do not negate the structural demand boost for compute and hosting services.