Lightstorm has secured a ₹2,500 crore debt facility from IndusInd Bank to build a dedicated fibre network connecting India’s major AI data centre hubs, as demand for high-speed infrastructure rises alongside the country’s AI expansion.
The 10-year, fully underwritten facility will finance the next phase of Lightstorm’s AI infrastructure build-out, with the company planning an AI-focused corridor linking data centre clusters in Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.
₹2,500 Crore Facility to Fund AI Infrastructure
The entire ₹2,500 crore raise will fund what the company considers the first large-scale fundraising for AI network infrastructure in India.
The planned fibre highways are intended to move large volumes of data between AI data centres more efficiently.
This is becoming increasingly important as companies build larger AI computing systems that rely on data and computing resources spread across multiple locations.
Lightstorm’s domestic network already spans more than 30,000 km of fibre and connects data centres across India. The company has previously said its network has capacity of around 700 terabits per second and serves more than 100 customers.
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India AI Corridor to Connect Southeast Asia
The domestic expansion comes shortly after Lightstorm announced the I-2SEA subsea cable project linking India with Singapore and Malaysia.
The consortium includes Microsoft, Tata Communications, Telekom Malaysia, Singtel, NEC and JCPL, with Lightstorm and Microsoft as co-owners.
The project is designed to provide an international connectivity backbone for AI data centres across India and Southeast Asia.
Lightstorm plans to use the new domestic AI corridor to connect Indian data centre hubs with major AI and hyperscale zones in Singapore and Malaysia. The strategy places fibre connectivity alongside data centres and computing capacity as a key part of India’s emerging AI infrastructure.
The ₹2,500 crore facility signals that AI infrastructure spending is moving deeper into the physical networks that connect computing centres.
As India adds AI capacity, the next competitive advantage may increasingly depend not only on where GPUs and data centres are built, but on how quickly and reliably they can communicate.
Samarjit Kaur is a journalist and communications professional covering technology & emerging digital trends. With a focus on clarity and context, she reports on developments shaping industries and governance. When not reporting, she chooses to plug-in and relax on her playlists and plan her next bucket-list trips!
