Airtel raises $1 billion for data centers from Carlyle, major PE firms

India’s telecom giant Bharti Airtel has raised $1 billion for its data center arm — Nxtra Data — from private equity firms Alpha Wave, Carlyle and Anchorage Capital, underscoring a growing global interest in the sector.

Bharti Airtel is India’s second-largest telecom operator and the raise will value Nxtra Data at about $3.1 billon once the transaction closes, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Monday.

Nxtra Data will receive $435 million from Florida-headquartered Alpha Wave Global, $240 million from existing investor Washington-based Carlyle, and $35 million from New York City’s Anchorage Capital, Airtel said, adding that it will contribute the remaining amount.

The fresh capital will support Nxtra’s expansion across India, Airtel said.

Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman of Airtel, said Nxtra has built “data center networks” aimed at meeting the evolving needs of enterprises, hyperscalers, and government clients.

Nxtra has around 300MW of data center capacity, which will be scaled to 1GW “in the next few years, targeting ~25% market share,” he added. It currently has 14 large data centers and more than 120 smaller, decentralized facilities located closer to end users and devices.

Data center demand globally has surged in recent years, largely driven by the explosion in AI workloads, which require vast computing power, electrical power, cooling and networking infrastructure. More than $61 billion flowed into the data center market in 2025.

“India has an immense AI opportunity — Indians already meaningfully interact with platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools,” said Navroz D. Udwadia, co‑founder of Alpha Wave Global, in the filing. India’s data center capacity must grow significantly to keep pace with demand from hyperscalers and large language models, he added.

Global interest has been rising sharply in India’s data center space, amid increasing artificial intelligence workloads. In December, Microsoft and Amazon pledged more than $50 billion toward India’s cloud and AI infrastructure in under 24 hours. In October, Google announced a $15 billion investment to build its largest data center hub outside the U.S. in India.

To keep up the momentum, the Indian government earlier this year announced a 20‑year tax exemption for hyperscalers using data centers in the country to serve global clients.

With already low infrastructure costs and a newly announced tax holiday, India is becoming increasingly attractive for hyperscalers compared to rival hubs such as Singapore, the UAE and Ireland.

“We have built a strong partnership with Airtel and continue to believe Nxtra is well-positioned to benefit from India’s long-term digital infrastructure tailwinds,” said Kapil Modi, partner at Carlyle India Advisors, in the filing.

India’s total installed data center capacity is expected to surpass 2GW by 2026, up from just over 1GW in 2025, according to a December report by KPMG. The firm projects capacity to rise fivefold to more than 8GW by 2030, generating an estimated $30 billion in capital expenditure.

Another Indian data center firm, Yotta Data Services, which is investing $2 billion to build an Nvidia-powered AI hub, told CNBC’s “Inside India” earlier this year that it is planning to list on public markets by late 2026 or early 2027 to raise funds for expansion.