Bharti Airtel’s data centre arm Nxtra Data is planning to raise about USD 1 billion to significantly expand its data centre capacity to gigawatt scale and accelerate its growth in India’s rapidly expanding digital infrastructure sector. The proposed fundraise, expected through a mix of rights issue and preferential allotment, will bring in new investor Alpha Wave Global, backed by Abu Dhabi’s deputy ruler Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to an Economic Times report by Himanshi Lohchab and Arijit Barman on Monday, March 9, 2026, citing people aware of the matter.
Also Read: Adani, Airtel Partner with Google to Set Up India’s First AI Hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
Alpha Wave Global to Join as New Investor
Under the proposed structure, Airtel and existing investor The Carlyle Group are expected to invest USD 300 million each, while Alpha Wave Global will commit about USD 400 million as a new shareholder. The capital infusion will be entirely in the form of primary funding and will be used to expand Nxtra’s data centre capacity to gigawatt scale, positioning the company among the leading digital infrastructure providers in the country alongside groups such as Reliance Industries, Adani Group, Tata Group and Larsen & Toubro.
Expansion Linked to Google’s AI Infrastructure Plans
The planned investment coincides with Airtel’s participation in building a large AI infrastructure hub in Visakhapatnam in collaboration with Google and the Adani Group. The proposed USD 15 billion project will house Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) used for training and running large artificial intelligence models. Airtel’s role in the project is expected to centre on connectivity and telecom infrastructure, including high-capacity fibre networks.
Airtel had carved out its data centre business into Nxtra in 2020 and later sold a 24.04 percent stake to Carlyle in 2021 for about USD 235 million, valuing the company at roughly USD 1.2 billion at the time. While Carlyle had earlier explored exiting its investment, the private equity firm has since decided to continue backing the company amid strong demand for data centre capacity.
Airtel's Nxtra
Nxtra currently operates one of India’s largest data centre networks with 14 core facilities and about 120 edge data centres across 65 cities. The company has an installed capacity of around 120–130 MW and holds nearly 12 percent market share across major cities such as Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Noida. Airtel’s management has indicated plans to scale capacity to about 1 GW and raise its market share to 25 percent over the next three to four years, with an eventual public listing also under consideration.
India’s Data Centre Boom Accelerates
According to the report, India’s data centre industry is witnessing a surge in investments driven by rising artificial intelligence workloads, cloud adoption and data localisation requirements. Global hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google, along with Indian conglomerates, are expected to invest more than USD 270 billion in the sector over the next five to seven years, potentially expanding the country’s data centre capacity from about 1.4 GW currently to nearly 10 GW.
Alpha Wave Global, which has previously backed technology firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX, has increasingly shifted focus towards infrastructure and traditional sectors in recent years. Its investment in Nxtra would mark another instance of collaboration with Carlyle as the firm seeks to capitalise on the accelerating demand for digital infrastructure in India.
