The scale is already visible in Maharashtra

TDS Desk

Blackstone-backed data centre giant AirTrunk has laid out a massive plan to invest more than $30 billion (3 lakh crore rupees) in India by 2030.

Aiming to develop over 5GW of data centre capacity, the move positions the Asia-Pacific hyperscale operator at the absolute centre of India’s artificial intelligence infrastructure boom, reports Financial Express.

At the helm of this monumental expansion is Robin Khuda, a Bangladesh-born Australian entrepreneur whose meteoric rise has caught the attention of global markets.

Khuda, who was named The Australian Financial Review’s Business Person of the Year for 2023, is a self-made billionaire who built a majority of his fortune via constructing data centres. As of today, Khuda boasts a net worth of $2.1 billion according to Forbes.

The proposed investment, backed by Blackstone and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, is among the largest digital infrastructure programmes currently under consideration in the country. Few of the larger investments that centred around building data centres in India come from entities like the Adani Group, which has proposed an investment of $100 billion into building renewable data centres in India.

AirTrunk said the project will span multiple states and union territories and support the next wave of cloud and artificial intelligence demand. The announcement follows AirTrunk’s entry into India in April 2026 through the acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra. That deal gave the company an initial 600 MW development pipeline across Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

The scale is already visible in Maharashtra. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier said that a letter of intent had been exchanged for land allotment at the Raigad Pen Growth Centre for a proposed 3GW data centre project, involving an investment of around 2 lakh crore rupees.

Data centre tycoon with roots from Dhaka

Born and raised in Dhaka, Khuda moved to Australia in 1997 and enrolled at the University of Technology Sydney to study accounting. He later completed an MBA from Manchester Business School and obtained professional accounting qualifications. His route to hyperscale infrastructure was not a conventional tech billionaire story.

He worked across technology, telecom and cloud-related roles, including at Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, before becoming chief financial officer at PIPE Networks — where he was involved in finance, strategy and M&A, including the company’s merger with TPG Telecom. He then joined data centre company NEXTDC, working closely with investors as the sector began attracting wider institutional attention.

AirTrunk was founded in 2015. The early phase was difficult: Khuda has spoken publicly about drawing on personal savings when external funding was hard to secure. By 2017, the company had opened major campuses in Sydney and Melbourne. In 2024, a Blackstone-led consortium acquired AirTrunk in a $24 billion transaction, with Khuda staying on as founder and CEO.

The company now describes itself as an Asia-Pacific and Middle East hyperscale platform, with operations across Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. Saudi Arabia recently entered its map through a strategic partnership with HUMAIN.

AirTrunk has a vast global portfolio with data centre operations based across Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Osaka. In Southeast Asia, it operates in Singapore and is expanding aggressively in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

In India, its listed pipeline includes three Mumbai projects, one in Chennai and one in Hyderabad. The latest investment plan would take that presence to another scale.

Why India, why now

For AirTrunk, India offers what hyperscale operators look for: demand, talent and policy intent. The company has cited Digital India, the IndiaAI Mission and the India Semiconductor Mission as pillars of its long-term investment case.

Khuda framed the pitch plainly: capital is mobile, and countries that move with certainty, coordination and speed will capture the next wave of AI infrastructure investment. India, he suggested, is showing signs of moving that way.

Netizens react to Air Trunk announcement: Water concerns take centre stage

Shortly after Air Trunk’s announced 30 billion dollar investment in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to X to hail the momentum at which India’s digital infrastructure ecosystem is growing.

While PM Modi celebrated the development, X users expressed skepticism, pointing out the irony of the prime minister announcing new water- and energy-intensive data centers just a day after World Environment Day.

A comprehensive study published by Council of Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) published earlier this year reported that data centres in India used 150 billion litres of water in 2024, and are expected to consume more than 300 billion litres by 2030 putting pressure on the country’s aquifers. Source: Financial Express