Tata Communications plans a 10,000-kilometer fiber expansion in India, with spending of up to $450 million to connect data-center and AI hubs as demand for capacity rises.
The company puts the investment at ₹4,350 crore ($400 million to $450 million) and says operating cash flows will fund it. Tata announced the plan Oct. 26. A filing with the National Stock Exchange of India lists existing network capacity at 1.25 petabits per second (Pbps), with utilization of about 70% to 80%.
The three-phase build would begin on a corridor linking Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. Subsequent stages are planned to serve data-center sites around Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City. Tata says the routes would connect those sites with landing stations for international cables and feed into its worldwide network.
The company is pitching the service to hyperscalers, AI platforms, neocloud providers, digital-native businesses and other enterprises. Tata points to wider cloud uptake, AI workloads and data-localization needs as drivers of demand for high-capacity connections.
Tata Communications Managing Director and CEO Ganesh Lakshminarayanan estimated that links between Indian data centers could represent a market worth more than $1 billion over the medium term. Moneycontrol reported that Tata had not announced contracts for this network; the company’s release did not name specific customers. Moneycontrol also reported that Rupesh Chokshi said Tata is targeting a 30% to 40% share of the data-center connectivity work it can pursue as capacity grows.
The exchange filing adds a capacity target to the fiber-network plan. Tata describes its broader network footprint as more than 500,000 kilometers of subsea optical fiber and more than 200,000 kilometers of terrestrial fiber.
The filing places the proposed addition of about 6 Pbps in FY 2030 to FY 2036. Economic Times, Business Standard and Moneycontrol separately reported, citing company executives, that the project is planned over three to five years. Tata’s release does not give dates for individual phases.
