New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has lined up $1 billion of fresh capital for its data centre arm, betting on a surge in demand for AI-ready computing capacity in India.
Airtel, the Carlyle Group, Alpha Wave Global and Anchorage Capital will together invest $1 billion in Nxtra Data, the company said in a statement issued after market hours on Monday. New York-based Alpha Wave, which has backed AI-first businesses including Anthropic and OpenAI, will put in $435 million. Carlyle, an existing investor, will add $240 million and Anchorage Capital $35 million. Airtel will invest about $290 million in its subsidiary.
Nxtra will be valued at around $3.1 billion after the transaction closes, and Airtel will retain a controlling stake. Airtel currently holds 75.96% of Nxtra, with Carlyle holding the rest.
Airtel carved out the data centre business into a separate entity in 2020, when Carlyle bought a 24.4% stake for $235 million, valuing Nxtra at $1.2 billion. The new round more than doubles that valuation five years on.
Nxtra operates 14 large core data centres and more than 120 edge facilities across India, offering co-location, cloud infrastructure, managed hosting, data backup, disaster recovery and edge computing. It is developing AI-ready campuses in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.
The transaction is a cash deal, Airtel said, and was announced after market hours on Monday. Investors' final shareholding will be subject to post-closing adjustments.
India has seen a spike in demand for AI-grade data centre capacity, and Nxtra's expansion is aimed at that business.