HCLTech Enter AI Infrastructure Biz with ₹3,500 Crore Investment in Data Centres

HCLTech said it will invest up to ₹3,500 crore to build an AI data centre business, marking its biggest push yet into AI infrastructure as the company looks to move beyond traditional IT services and capture a larger share of enterprise spending on artificial intelligence.

The initial investment will create AI-ready data centre capacity that can eventually scale to 50 megawatts, chief executive C Vijayakumar said in a press briefing on Monday. He added that the company is already in advanced discussions with customers and is close to signing its first client with committed capacity.

"We are starting with an initial investment of ₹3,500 crore, but our bigger vision is to grow it to a 50-megawatt capacity," Vijayakumar said during the company's June-quarter earnings briefing.

Unlike conventional data centre operators that primarily sell computing capacity, HCLTech said it plans to build a full-stack AI platform spanning AI data centres, GPU infrastructure, foundation models, enterprise applications and managed services.

"For infrastructure companies, megawatts become the product. For us, megawatts are just the anchor," Vijayakumar said. “Our whole value is in delivering full-stack AI services. Which means it's the data centre, GPUs, models, the applications we will deliver on top of it.” 

The move reflects a broader shift in enterprise AI spending, where technology vendors are increasingly seeking greater control over AI infrastructure as inference costs and GPU availability become critical to delivering AI-powered services.

Vijayakumar said global data centre demand is expected to nearly triple by 2030 because of AI adoption, while growth in India is likely to outpace global markets as governments and enterprises increasingly require AI workloads to remain within national borders.

"Sovereign data requirements are increasingly mandating that workloads for governments, enterprises and even global consumer platforms be delivered in-country," he said.

Owning AI infrastructure will also help HCLTech reduce token consumption, one of the largest emerging cost components in AI services.

The announcement came alongside HCLTech's Q1 FY27 earnings, where the company reported a 20.3% year-on-year increase in net profit to ₹4,626 crore. The revenue for the quarter rose 13.9% to ₹34,579 crore. The company retained its FY27 revenue growth guidance of 1-4% in constant currency.