Meta Partners with Reliance to Build 168MW AI Data Center in Jamnagar, Gujarat

Meta Platforms and Reliance Industries announced a partnership to develop a 168-megawatt AI-enabled data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat, marking Meta's first AI data center in India and a major expansion of AI infrastructure in the country.

What Happened

Meta Platforms has signed its first AI data center deal in India, partnering with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to build a 168-megawatt AI-enabled data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat, according to an announcement on June 10, 2026. Under the agreement, Reliance will construct the facility — located within Reliance's existing Jamnagar refining and petrochemicals complex — and Meta will lease it for its AI computing needs. Mark Zuckerberg said the center will bring infrastructure "to power our products and AI capabilities closer to India's users." The facility is designed as an AI-enabled campus using renewable power, with Meta securing approximately 1 GW of new solar and wind deals to support its India operations.

Strategic Significance

This deal marks a major deepening of the Meta-Reliance relationship, which began with Meta's $5.7 billion investment in Reliance's Jio Platforms in 2020 — one of the largest foreign direct investments in Indian technology. The companies formed a joint venture in 2025 to develop enterprise AI tools in India using Meta's open-source Llama models. The Jamnagar data center represents the physical infrastructure layer of this partnership: instead of routing Indian users' AI queries to data centers in the US or Singapore, Meta can now process them locally, reducing latency and complying with India's data localization preferences.

Metric	Detail
Capacity	168 MW (expandable)
Location	Jamnagar, Gujarat (Reliance complex)
Energy source	Renewable (solar + wind, ~1 GW secured)
Meta's total India investment	$5.7B (Jio 2020) + data center lease
India data center market (2034)	Projected $13.11 billion (nearly double current)

Why Jamnagar?

Jamnagar may seem an unexpected location for a cutting-edge AI data center, but it offers several strategic advantages. Reliance's Jamnagar complex is the world's largest oil refining hub, with existing power infrastructure, land availability, and robust connectivity to undersea cable landing stations on both India's west coast. The Gujarat government has offered incentives for data center development, including tax benefits and fast-tracked permitting. The location also benefits from Gujarat's high solar and wind energy potential, supporting Meta's commitment to power its operations with 100% renewable energy. The campus is designed with water-cooled servers and advanced cooling systems suited to Gujarat's climate.

India's Data Center Boom

India's data center market is projected to nearly double by 2034 to $13.11 billion, according to industry analysts. The growth is driven by three factors: India's 900 million+ internet users generating enormous data volumes, the government's data localization push requiring foreign companies to store Indian user data locally, and the explosive growth of AI workloads requiring specialized GPU-optimized infrastructure. Beyond Meta, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have all announced significant India data center expansions in 2025-2026. Reliance itself has entered the data center business through its Jio Infrastructure division, positioning itself as a key infrastructure provider for the AI era.

India Angle — What This Means for Indian Tech

The Meta-Reliance partnership has profound implications for India's AI ecosystem. Local AI inference — processing AI requests on servers physically in India — means lower latency for Indian users of Meta's AI features across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. For Indian developers and startups, Meta's open-source Llama models combined with local inference infrastructure could enable a new generation of AI applications optimized for Indian languages and contexts. The partnership also puts pressure on other global AI players — including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic — to establish or expand their India infrastructure. However, critics note that the partnership concentrates enormous AI infrastructure in the hands of two private entities, raising questions about access, pricing, and competition in India's emerging AI market.

Sources

• TechCrunch: Meta signs first AI data center deal in India with Reliance
• TradingView / GuruFocus: Meta and Reliance expand AI partnership
• RiskInfo.ai: AI insights — key global developments June 2026
• Diya TV: Jamnagar to host Meta's first AI data center in India