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Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's Adani Group is seeking about $1.5 billion in offshore loans to expand its data centre business, as it pushes ahead with a plan to spend $100 billion on infrastructure for artificial intelligence by 2035.
The borrower is AdaniConneX Pvt., the group's joint venture with U.S. data centre operator EdgeConneX, people familiar with the matter said. The company is in talks with DBS Group Holdings Ltd., First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., and Natixis SA, ING Groep NV and Societe Generale SA are also in discussions.
The loan would have a tenor of five to seven years. Pricing and other terms have not been agreed, and the size and structure of the deal could still change.
The financing would follow an $800 million loan with an 18-month tenor that AdaniConneX raised a few months ago. In 2024, the venture secured up to $1.44 billion in construction financing from international banks to build data centres.
A $100 billion plan
Adani announced in February that his group would invest $100 billion by 2035 in data centres powered by renewable energy. The plan would lift AdaniConneX's capacity from about 2 gigawatts to 5 gigawatts across several campuses in India, and the group said it could draw another $150 billion of spending from partners and suppliers.
The group is building a gigawatt-scale AI campus for Alphabet Inc.'s Google in Visakhapatnam, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, and is working with Microsoft Corp. on projects in Hyderabad and Pune. It is also developing more campuses in Noida, near New Delhi.
Adani is betting that his energy business gives him an edge. AI data centres use large amounts of electricity around the clock, and the group already runs ports, power plants, transmission lines and renewable energy projects. Its Adani Green Energy Ltd. is building a 30-gigawatt renewable energy park at Khavda in Gujarat, more than 10 gigawatts of which is already operating.
Racing Ambani
India's data centre capacity stood at about 1.57 gigawatts in August, and the government expects it to reach nearly 8 gigawatts by 2030. The country could draw about $200 billion of data centre investment over the next seven to eight years.
Adani faces competition from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd., which plans to spend about $110 billion over seven years on AI infrastructure, as well as from global technology companies building their own capacity in the country.
Adani, 64, started out as a commodities trader in Ahmedabad in the late 1980s and built the Adani Group into India's largest private operator of ports and airports, with businesses in power, mining, cement, renewable energy and media. In October, Forbes ranked him and his family first on its list of India's richest people, with a fortune of $112.7 billion.
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