Airtel's Nxtra Raises $1 Bn from Alpha Wave, Carlyle and Anchorage Capital

Bharti Airtel's data centre arm, Nxtra Data Limited, has secured $1 billion in fresh capital from a consortium of global private equity investors, in one of the largest fundraises in India's digital infrastructure sector this year.

Alpha Wave Global, Carlyle Group and Anchorage Capital are leading the round, which values Nxtra at approximately $3.1 billion post-closing. Alpha Wave will contribute $435 million as the lead investor, Carlyle, an existing backer, will infuse $240 million, and Anchorage Capital will put in $35 million.

Airtel itself is investing the remaining $290 million, while retaining a controlling stake in the company. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals.

Airtel had carved out its data centre business into a separate entity in 2020, after which Carlyle acquired a 24.4% stake for $235 million, valuing Nxtra at $1.2 billion at that time. The latest round, at nearly three times that valuation, reflects how sharply investor appetite for Indian data centre assets has grown, driven largely by the global surge in AI workloads.

Nxtra currently operates 14 large core data centres and over 120 edge facilities across India, offering co-location, cloud infrastructure, managed hosting, data backup, disaster recovery, and edge computing services.

The company said it intends to use the proceeds to scale its current capacity of 300 MW to 1 GW within a few years, targeting roughly a quarter of the Indian market.

Nxtra is also developing AI-ready campuses in Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata, and recently partnered with Google to build a gigawatt-scale AI data centre campus backed by a $15 billion investment.

The fundraise arrives at a pivotal moment for India's data centre industry. According to Savills India report, India's data centre market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 21% between 2024 and 2030, reaching nearly 3,400 MW of IT capacity, up from just over 900 MW in 2024.

For Alpha Wave Global, which has backed AI-first companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cerebras, the Nxtra deal represents a direct play on India's emerging role in the global AI supply chain. "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, pointing to the need for data centre capacity to keep pace with hyperscaler and large language model demand.

Carlyle's Kapil Modi echoed the long-term conviction, noting that Nxtra is well-positioned to benefit from India's digital infrastructure tailwinds and that the company has made meaningful progress in expanding capabilities and building a scalable platform since Carlyle first invested.

For Airtel, the deal achieves two objectives simultaneously, one is injecting significant capital into a high-growth subsidiary without diluting its controlling position, and attracting institutional validators at a moment when competition in the Indian data centre space is intensifying rapidly.