

Will the Budget 2026's tax gambit result in an AI infrastructure boom?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India's 21-year tax holiday for foreign cloud providers, announced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her latest budget, has fuelled optimism across the technology sector. Politicians, industry executives, and analysts expect a surge in data-centre investments and employment.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, India's IT minister, said India could attract over $200 billion in data-centre investments over the years. Addressing a press conference at a 3DExperience World event in Houston, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said data centres could generate huge upstream and downstream employment in India, just the way the internet did. However, execution is the key, and it faces several constraints, including land, energy, water and talent.
India's data-centre capacity has surged from 350 megawatts (MW) in 2019 to an estimated 1.3 gigawatts (GW), or 1,000MW, in 2025, according to India Ratings and Research. In 2025, the agency estimated it would grow to 1.7GW in 2026 and to over 2GW by 2027. The tax holiday could boost this further.
Three categories of players now dominate the market: global hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google and Meta, which are increasingly colocating AI-optimized facilities; Indian operators and joint ventures, including Yotta, Nxtra, AdaniConneX, Sify and CtrlS, which run data centres for enterprise and cloud clients; and telecom-linked conglomerates such as Reliance Industries, integrating cloud, connectivity and data centre assets for domestic and regional markets. All three segments have been growing, driven by surging digital demand. The announcement is aimed at boosting these further, while balancing them with safeguards for domestic ownership
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