By Fabiana Negrin Ochoa and Jason Chau


Facebook parent Meta is expanding its partnership with India's Reliance Industries into artificial-intelligence infrastructure as it invests aggressively to grow its capacity footprint.

The U.S. company said Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with the conglomerate to lease an AI-enabled data center in India, one of its fastest-growing markets.

"We're proud to be working with Reliance to build our first AI-enabled data center in India," Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said.

The investment reaffirms Meta's commitment to India, the company said, without disclosing financial details.

Under the agreement, Reliance will oversee the design, construction and the management of utilities, power supply and network connectivity for the facility in Jamnagar, Gujarat. Meta will lease the data center and retain options to expand capacity.

The facility will have a capacity of 168-megawatts and is expected to be delivered within two years.

"This partnership with Meta marks a transformative moment for India's digital infrastructure," Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Shri Mukesh D. Ambani said in a statement Wednesday.

"Building India's first built-to-suit data center for a global technology leader of Meta's scale demonstrates India's readiness to be at the forefront of the global AI revolution," he added.

Reliance Industries shares gained as much as 2.5% in early trading Wednesday following the announcement. The stock was last trading 2.0% higher.

Jamnagar is a strategic location where Reliance is developing one of the world's largest data-center campuses. The company said the facility will benefit from the region's extensive network infrastructure and will be powered by renewable energy.

Meta also announced that it contracted nearly one gigawatt of new solar- and wind-power projects through agreements with clean-energy companies CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy.


Write to Fabiana Negrin Ochoa at fabiana.negrinochoa@wsj.com and Jason Chau at jason.chau@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-10-26 0045ET