BLACKSTONE DROPS $30 BILLION ON INDIA — THE BIGGEST AI DATA CENTER BET IN THE HISTORY OF THE SUBCONTINENT Blackstone-backed data center operator AirTrunk announced Thursday it will invest $30 billion in India by 2030, building 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity across Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and a massive 3GW facility in Maharashtra. This is the largest single infrastructure commitment to India’s AI ambitions to date and signals that the next great data center land grab is not in Texas or Paris. It is in South Asia. AirTrunk entered India earlier this year through its acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra and already has a 600MW development pipeline underway. The new commitment dwarfs that by a factor of eight. The Maharashtra facility alone, anchored by a letter of intent exchanged at a meeting between AirTrunk CEO Robin Khuda and Prime Minister Modi, represents roughly $21 billion of the total. India is an obvious target. The country has cheap electricity, a massive technical workforce, favorable government policy, and a domestic AI market that is growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world. The question is whether the infrastructure can get built at the pace the announcements suggest. SoftBank, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have all made similar pledges in recent months. AirTrunk’s $30 billion is the biggest bet so far. Keywords: AirTrunk India data centers, Blackstone AI infrastructure, India AI investment, AI data center 2026