AI needs chips and power, but it also needs very fast roads for data. Tata Communications wants to build one across India.
The company has announced plans to invest USD 400-450 million in what it calls an “AI super highway”, a high-speed, low-latency network connecting India’s key AI and data centre corridors. It will lay around 10,000 kilometres of new long-haul fibre, which it says will create one of the country’s largest AI-ready connectivity networks.
Where it will go
The build is planned in three phases. The first focuses on the Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Chennai corridor, one of India’s biggest AI and hyperscale growth routes. Later phases will extend to East Coast and Western India data centre ecosystems, including Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City.
The network will be integrated with Tata Communications’ global backbone and linked to international cable landing stations, so customers can connect Indian data centres to major global AI hubs. It is designed for hyperscalers, AI platforms, neo-cloud providers, Global Capability Centres and enterprises.
Speaking to The Economic Times, Chief Product and Technology Officer Rupesh Chokshi said the project would be implemented over three to five years, funded through operating cash flows, and provide 7.2 petabytes of capacity.
A billion-dollar opportunity
MD and CEO Ganesh Lakshminarayanan said the company believes India’s data-centre-to-data-centre connectivity market “could evolve into a market exceeding USD 1 billion over the medium term.” He added that a growing share of the expansion is being driven by anchor customer commitments and contracted demand.
“The AI economy needs more than compute. It needs a network built for speed, scale and resilience,” Chokshi said.
Tata Communications already runs more than 500,000 km of subsea fibre and over 200,000 km of terrestrial fibre. In June it announced plans for a new Mumbai-Singapore subsea cable and joined a consortium building a Chennai-Singapore system expected to be ready in Q4 2029.
Why it matters
As more AI and cloud workloads run from Indian data centres, the links between those centres decide how fast and reliable services feel for end users. Better domestic backbone capacity can mean lower latency and more resilient cloud services for Indian businesses, and it strengthens India’s case as a regional hub for global companies. For anyone choosing cloud regions or planning multi-site setups, connectivity between hubs is becoming as important as the data centre itself.
Sources: Tata Communications, The Economic Times. Written by the xRapid Media LLP team.