Airtel’s Nxtra Plans $1 Bn To Expand AI Data Centres

Nxtra Data, which is a data centre owned by Bharti Airtel, is aiming to raise $1bn to expand infrastructure, according to a report by the Economic Times. The report said that the data centre is planning to increase its capacity to gigawatt scale and also set to rope in Alpha Wave Global.

Alpha Wave is an investment vehicle linked to Abu Dhabi's Deputy Ruler, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and also backs Anthropic, OpenAI, Grok, and SpaceX, among others.

Alpha Wave is going to enter as a new investor, infusing $400bn, addition to $300mn injected by Airtel and Carlyle each.

All the money raised will come entirely through primary capital, and the timing ties in neatly with Airtel's ambitions to co-develop Google's $15 billion gigawatt-scale AI hub and data centre complex in Visakhapatnam, a project it is undertaking alongside the Adani Group.

Airtel spun off its data centre business into Nxtra in 2020 and subsequently sold a 24.04% stake to Carlyle in 2021 for about $235mn, valuing the company at $1.2bn at the time. Airtel has retained majority control, seeking external capital to scale the business.

"We highlight that during Q3, the company noted that it has 10-12% market share in India’s data centre, and it aims to capture around 25% share as the data-centre market remains lucrative, driven by AI, cloud computing, and digital services. The stake dilution and valuation are not disclosed; however, the new fund raise signals a strong push in the data centre foray," said ICICI Direct in a report.

Nxtra is one of the largest data centre network with 15 hyperscale centres across 8 major markets and 66 unique cities across India, according to the company website.

It currently operates data centres with a combined power capacity of over 230 MW. At the same time, the company has tied up more than 390 MW of renewable energy capacity.