There is a sudden downpour of Big Tech investment in India. Amazon has just announced it will invest $35 billion by 2030 for advancing AI-driven digitization. Earlier, on Tuesday, Microsoft said it will pump in $17.5 billion through to 2029 to strengthen the country’s AI ecosystem. That’s pledges for $52.5 billion in one week.
Earlier, in October, Google said it would spend $15 billion to build new AI data centers in India, taking the total to $67.5 bn. There’s more. Intel too has announced it will support the Tata Group’s new semiconductor manufacturing plans.
Meta is not far behind. It is considering building a data center in India, a project that might be linked to its ambitious Waterworth subsea cable. Project Waterworth is Meta's massive, 50,000 km subsea cable system, set to be the world's longest, connecting the US, India, Brazil, and South Africa by 2030.
Data centre hub
These investment plans indicate an important shift. So far India was important to Big Tech companies as a market for their products. But there is a change now. What we are seeing after the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, India has become a major hub for developing AI infrastructure such as data centers.
Amazon is betting big on India wanting to expand from just quick commerce to cloud computing. The company says the new investments will create a million jobs, as it pushes to keep pace with competition from Walmart’s Flipkart and other instant delivery outfits Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto and the home grown Meesho.
Days ago, Microsoft chairman Satya Nadella, on a tour of India, announced “our largest investment in India” building on the earlier $3 billion. The company’s new data centre will go live mid-2026, which the company claims will benefit 310 million informal workers from Microsoft’s AI’s integration into e-Shram and National Career Service (NCS) platforms. The $17.5 billion investment will also double Microsoft’s skilling target to 20 million by 2030.
For Apple, India is already serving as a major diversification hub with more than 20% of its iPhones now being manufactured in India, and the contract production by Foxconn and the Tatas continuing to ramp up capacity. India has also exhibited strong local demand and has become the fourth largest market for iPhones in shipment volume, after the US, Japan and China.
The rush of investments into India to build cloud and AI infrastructure is being driven by a combination of forward-looking policies by the government, a wealth of local talent, and changing market dynamics.
Satya Nadella, in his presentations in India, has underlined these factors.
Why the rush?
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), DPDP Rules, 2025, along with the setting up of regulators, has provided confidence to global cloud providers to build local capacity and sovereign cloud offerings that comply with Indian jurisdiction and data-residency norms. Also, the tailoring of production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes for manufacturing -- especially semiconductors and IT hardware -- has been attracting investments.
India’s vast talent pool and rapidly growing market are attractive propositions too. More than 5 million IT professionals give India the depth to support cloud engineering and AI development at scale. These are not only vastly cheaper than other western markets, but the cost of training a new pipeline of entrants is hugely cost effective. No wonder Microsoft has set its target on training 20 million professionals by 2030.
Meanwhile, an expanding base of 800 million internet users are expected to create a $1 trillion economy by 2030. This large consumer base that is adopting digital payments (UPI) as a way of life, and a middle class hooked on e-commerce and other digital services has created a robust demand for new technology and data infrastructure.
Enterprise demand is also pushing Big Tech investment in India. Companies adopting cloud solutions, modernisation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and increasing AI workloads is pushing these Big Tech companies to build their data capacity closer to their clients. A spectrum of businesses across fintech, e-commerce, logistics and government services are dependent on cloud platforms to run their systems and processes. It is these rapidly expanding businesses and services that are now driving in investments from Amazon, Microsoft and the others.
These investments also show India is now the laboratory for next-generation cloud and AI infrastructure. How they pan out will determine future strategies for these companies and how they plan to deploy their technology and money across new emerging markets.
Some years ago, India was posed as an alternative to the turbulent China market (China +1). Then the Xi Jinping regime made an effort and cleared up some of the regulatory cobwebs that was forcing the exit of many foreign technology companies. However, with the extended Ukraine war, China’s alignment with Russia, and a growing sanctions regime against Russia and its allies, China has again become a risky investment destination. This has opened a window of opportunity aga for India.
IT professionals looking to work in the US today face a gamut of anti-immigration rules. For US-based companies too, the cost of recruitment has multiplied as employers have to now pay $100,000 for the H-1B visa. In this environment, Big Tech investments in India will make placements at home easier and the desperation for emigre positions less attractive.