TCS Ropes In TPG As Investor To Build INR 18K Cr AI Data Centres

As part of its AI infrastructure push, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has brought in global investment firm TPG as a major investor in HyperVault – the IT giant’s newly formed AI data centre subsidiary.

This comes weeks after TCS incorporated HyperVault to build AI-focussed data centres across India. 

In a statement, TCS said that it and TPG Terabyte Bidco plan to invest up to INR 18,000 Cr (about $2 Bn) in a mix of equity and debt over the next few years to build the data centres. 

TCS will retain a 51% stake in HyperVault, while TPG is expected to eventually own between 27.5% and 49% depending on the investment tranches. TPG, which will invest up to INR 8,820 Cr in the JV, will invest via TPG Rise Climate and its Global South Initiative, a private equity strategy launched in partnership with climate investment fund ALTÉRRA. 

Additionally, TPG is also partnering through its Asia real estate business. TCS and TPG are eying to build up to 1.2 GW of capacity over five to seven years.

Notably, HyperVault has been set up as the exclusive vehicle for TCS’ AI and sovereign data centre strategy and will offer liquid-cooled, high-density facilities for hyperscalers, large enterprises, AI companies and government clients. 

The TPG partnership was approved by TCS’ investment committee today. Both sides have agreed to a three-year lock-in on share transfers, except to affiliates. 

Indian IT Companies Move Towards Data Centres

The venture marks a major shift for TCS, which has traditionally remained asset-light, and is now moving into a capital-heavy infrastructure business at a time when AI compute demand is surging globally.

Its rival Infosys is also now investing in data infrastructure, something that the two companies earlier left mostly to global cloud providers and telecom players.

The shift is being driven by rising demand for AI compute, stricter data localisation rules, and the need for domestic cloud capacity that can support government, enterprise and consumer workloads. 

The change has become more visible over the past year. Infosys has expanded its cloud and infrastructure footprint through acquisitions and joint ventures such as its recent tie-up with Telstra, which strengthens its role in cloud engineering and AI-enabled digital platforms.

While Infosys is not yet setting up its own large-scale data centres, the Telstra JV marks a move closer to the infrastructure layer.

Meanwhile Zoho, which already runs its own data centres in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, has announced that it will set up a new facility in Odisha under the state’s data centre policy. The company has been vocal about keeping Indian users’ data within the country, and the new centre is part of the broader decentralisation of its storage and cloud network.