Tata Communications plans a multiyear fiber build linking India’s data center hubs, with spending of up to $450 million as capacity expands, executive Rupesh Chokshi told Moneycontrol and Mint.
Chokshi, the company’s executive vice president and global business head for network services, said the work would unfold over three to five years and cover about 10,000 kilometers. The initial corridor would connect Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai, the two outlets reported.
Moneycontrol and Mint named Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City as possible destinations for later expansion, but did not establish a rollout sequence. Mint also reported the network would connect data center clusters with international cable landing stations.
The proposal comes as India’s data center base grows. Cushman & Wakefield reported 1,789 megawatts of operating capacity across the country’s seven leading markets in the first half of 2026, alongside 3,860 megawatts under construction or planned through 2030. The firm cited cloud adoption, AI workloads, digital services and enterprise digitalization as growth drivers.
Tata Communications estimates that India’s market for connections between data centers could exceed $1 billion over the medium term, according to Moneycontrol and Mint. Moneycontrol reported that the company aims to capture 30% to 40% of that market and designed the network for 7.2 petabytes of capacity. Chokshi also cited a 15% to 20% benchmark return on investment for this type of project, Moneycontrol reported.
Tata Communications said on its Q2 FY2027 earnings call that its India network included more than 80,000 kilometers of terrestrial fiber, 30,000 kilometers of metro fiber and connections to 118 data centers. The quarter ended Sept. 30, 2026.
In July 2025, Tata Communications announced a long-distance network with Amazon Web Services connecting AWS infrastructure in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. On its latest earnings call, the company also described a multimillion-dollar AI connectivity engagement, without linking it to this proposed build.
Mint reported Chokshi said operating cash flows would fund the new project and that the first phase is expected to enter service within three years.
