The Pulse
Tata Communications Plans Up to $450M India AI Fiber Build
Tata Communications plans to spend $400 million to $450 million on roughly 10,000 km of AI-ready fiber across India. The first corridor links Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai, while the company targets 30% to 40% of data-center connectiv
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
Tata Communications says customer commitments are helping drive its network expansion, but the company has not announced contracts for its proposed India AI Super Highway. The distinction matters: on October 26, the company announced plans to invest $400 million to $450 million in about 10,000 kilometers of new fiber, while network-services executive Rupesh Chokshi told Moneycontrol that customer talks were advanced but contracts for this network had not been announced.
The proposed build will connect data-center and AI hubs, starting with a corridor through Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. Tata Communications plans later phases in eastern and western India, linking locations including Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City. The company says the network will connect those hubs to international cable landing stations and its global backbone.
Customer demand, without named contracts
In its announcement, Tata Communications CEO Ganesh Lakshminarayanan said the country’s data-center-to-data-center connectivity market could exceed $1 billion over the medium term. He also said a growing proportion of the company’s expansion was being driven by anchor-customer commitments and contracted demand.
Chokshi gave a more specific status update on the proposed network in an interview published by Moneycontrol on October 26. He said Tata Communications was in advanced discussions with customers but had not announced contracts for the AI Super Highway. The statements are not necessarily at odds: the company’s release refers broadly to its expansion, while the interview addresses contracts for this proposed network. Tata Communications did not name customers or disclose deal sizes.
“We're targeting somewhere around 30 to 40 percent from a market share perspective of work we can go after as we build this capacity,”
Rupesh Chokshi, executive vice president and global business head for network services, Tata Communications
That 30% to 40% figure is a target for the share of data-center connectivity work the company believes it can pursue as it builds capacity, not a share it already holds. Chokshi said Tata plans to deploy the investment over three to five years, prioritising routes according to traffic projections, capacity needs and the pace of data-center development.
A 10,000-kilometer route for data centers
The first phase focuses on the Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Chennai corridor. Later phases are planned to extend into eastern and western data-center ecosystems, including the company’s named sites of Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City. Tata Communications says the project will also expand its existing national long-distance and metro network.
The company is pitching the build to hyperscalers, AI platforms, neocloud providers and enterprises. Its plan centers on terrestrial fiber between Indian data-center hubs, with international cable landing stations and the global backbone providing onward links. The intended customers include businesses moving data between computing facilities or connecting Indian operations to overseas AI hubs.
Tata Communications says its existing network spans more than 500,000 kilometers of subsea optical fiber and more than 200,000 kilometers of terrestrial fiber. The new project is an expansion of that network, not a stand-alone system; the company has not published route-by-route construction dates.
The return depends on filling the new capacity
Lakshminarayanan’s market estimate supplies the commercial rationale for the outlay, while the customer disclosures show what remains unconfirmed publicly. Chokshi told Moneycontrol the company was targeting 30% to 40% of the work it could pursue as the capacity comes online, and said it was in discussions with multiple customers. Neither the announcement nor the interview named a signed customer contract for the proposed network.
Tata Communications announced the investment on October 26, 2026. It expects to build the network in three phases over the coming years, beginning with Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai; customer names and phase-specific completion dates remain undisclosed.