October 17, 2026: India's renewable energy suppliers are poised for a surge in demand from data centers, as increasing backlash in the US and risks from the West Asia conflict drive operators to new markets.
 
The green energy needed to power the infrastructure serving artificial intelligence is “massively underappreciated,” said Kuldeep Jain, managing director and founder of CleanMax Enviro Energy Solutions Ltd., a top renewables provider in the country.
 
“Even if just five gigawatts of data center capacity comes to India, which is a conservative estimate, you will need about 30-40 gigawatts of renewable power,” he said in an interview in Mumbai. “It’s a case of demand exceeding supply.”
 
India has been rolling out the red carpet for data center companies, offering power tariff subsidies, tax breaks, and easier land clearances. That’s made the country the top-ranked market for data center development in Asia-Pacific outside China, according to BloombergNEF. 

The country's appeal as a destination for these firms has been boosted by public backlash in the US against their resource-guzzling facilities and by the risks they face from the threat of widening conflict in West Asia, Jain said. Two of Amazon’s data centers were damaged by an Iranian strike in Bahrain in July. 
 
Supporting such a rapid buildout will need billions of dollars in renewables and energy storage spending, Jain said. CleanMax is adding about 1.5 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity per year, with annual capital expenditure of up to 90 billion rupees ($950 million), he added.
 
“If you want to power a one gigawatt AI data cenere with 75 per cent renewables, you need about three gigawatt of solar, three gigawatt of wind and about three gigawatt-hours of energy storage capacity,” Jain said. “This requires about Rs 400 billion ($4.8 billion) of capital expenditure just on the renewables side.

(Source: Business Standard)