Tata Communications bets $450 million on fibre network for India's AI data centres

Tata Communications on Monday said it plans to invest USD 450 million (about Rs 4,280 crore) for setting up a high-speed long-haul fibre network in India to connect AI data centres.

The first phase of the programme will focus on the Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Chennai corridor, one of India's most important Al and hyperscale growth routes.

Subsequent phases will expand connectivity into emerging East Coast and Western India data centre ecosystems, including Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar, GIFT City and other strategic locations, the company said in a statement.

"Tata Communications...announced strategic investments of close to USD 450 million to build an Al super highway in India - a high-speed, low-latency network fabric connecting India's key Al data-centre corridors. The company will build around 10,000 kilometers of the new long-haul fibre across India, creating one of the country's largest Al-ready connectivity networks," it said.

Integrated with Tata Communications' global network backbone, the Al network aims to provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end connectivity fabric, supporting the performance, resilience and scale required for next-generation Al workloads.

"We are excited about the opportunity in the India data centre-to-data centre connectivity, which we believe could evolve into a market exceeding USD 1 billion over the medium term. With our planned investments, we are building on our existing strengths to create one of the most comprehensive data centre connectivity platforms in the market. As we scale, a growing proportion of our expansion is being driven by anchor customer commitments and contracted demand," MD and CEO Ganesh Lakshminarayanan said.

Tata Communications said it will enable seamless connectivity between India and major global Al hubs across, positioning India as a strategic gateway in the global digital infrastructure landscape.

In parallel, the company will continue to cater to the requirement of existing enterprise and data centre connectivity requirements by scaling its current national long distance and metro network footprint.

Tata Communications operates one of the largest wholly-owned subsea fibre networks spanning over 5 lakh kilometer of subsea optical fibre and over 2 lakh km of terrestrial fibre.

The company said it enhanced Tata Global Network (TGN) capabilities in June 2026 by planning a new subsea cable system between Mumbai and Singapore and invested as a consortium member in a new subsea cable system, connecting Chennai to Singapore, which is expected to be ready for service in the last quarter of 2029.