Tata Communications plans to invest up to $450 million (approximately ₹4,000 crore) over the next three to five years to build an AI-ready fibre network connecting India’s major data centres and artificial intelligence hubs. The project, called the AI Super Highway, will span approximately 10,000 km and aims to capture 30% to 40% of the data centre-to-data centre connectivity market.
Announced on October 26, 2026, the initiative comes as demand for AI computing, cloud infrastructure and high-speed data transmission grows across India. The company expects the country’s data centre connectivity market to exceed $1 billion over the medium term.
Tata Communications AI Super Highway to Connect Four Major Cities First
The first phase of the network will connect Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai, creating a high-capacity fibre corridor between some of India’s key data centre and technology hubs.
The second phase is expected to extend connectivity towards the eastern coast, including Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar. A subsequent phase will expand the network into western India, including Gujarat’s GIFT City and Jamnagar.
The planned 10,000-km network is designed to provide approximately 7.2 petabytes of capacity. Tata Communications will also connect the new infrastructure to international cable landing stations and its existing global network backbone.
Company Targets 30% to 40% Market Share
Tata Communications is targeting a 30% to 40% share of the data centre-to-data centre connectivity business it can pursue as the network expands.
The company expects demand from hyperscalers, neocloud providers, AI laboratories, cloud platforms, global capability centres and large enterprises. These organisations increasingly need reliable, high-capacity connections to move data between computing facilities.
According to company executives, customer discussions for the proposed network are at an advanced stage, although contracts specifically for the AI Super Highway have not yet been publicly announced.
Low-Latency Connectivity Will Support AI Workloads
AI applications require substantial volumes of data to move between processors, storage systems and data centres. As companies expand their AI infrastructure, network performance is becoming increasingly important alongside computing power, electricity and cooling.
Tata Communications aims to deliver round-trip latency of approximately 15–16 milliseconds between Mumbai and Chennai. The company plans to use high-quality fibre, network electronics and resilient routes to meet demanding service-level requirements.
The network will support bandwidth requirements beyond traditional 10-gigabit and 100-gigabit connections, with demand increasingly extending to 400-gigabit, 800-gigabit and terabit-scale connectivity.
Such infrastructure could support AI model training, inference, cloud computing and other data-intensive enterprise workloads.
Tata Communications Plans to Fund Investment Through Operating Cash Flow
The proposed investment of $400 million to $450 million will be deployed in phases over three to five years. The company has indicated that operating cash flows will be the primary funding source.
Tata Communications expects the investment to generate long-term revenue through customer contracts that could run for five to ten years. The underlying fibre infrastructure is designed to remain useful for approximately 25 years.
However, returns will depend on execution, customer demand, network utilisation and the pace at which India’s data centre industry expands.
Tata Communications Expands Its Global AI Infrastructure
The AI Super Highway will build on Tata Communications’ existing international network, which includes more than 500,000 km of subsea optical fibre and over 200,000 km of terrestrial fibre.
The company is also pursuing additional subsea connectivity linking Mumbai and Chennai with Singapore. These connections are intended to complement the domestic fibre network and help businesses move data between Indian data centres and overseas AI hubs.
As cloud providers and AI companies expand their operations, Tata Communications aims to position itself as a key infrastructure provider for India’s growing digital economy.
India’s AI Infrastructure Race Gathers Pace
Tata Communications’ investment highlights the growing importance of connectivity in India’s AI expansion. Building data centres alone is not enough: AI providers also need high-speed, resilient networks capable of moving large amounts of data between locations.
The proposed AI Super Highway could strengthen connections between major technology hubs and create new opportunities in enterprise networking. Its eventual commercial impact will depend on how quickly the company completes construction and converts customer interest into long-term contracts.
