Brookfield Expects 6.5 GW of AI Data Center Capacity to Come Online in India Over Five Years

Brookfield Asset Management forecasts that India will bring approximately 6.5 gigawatts of artificial intelligence data center capacity online over the next five years, driven by growing demand for AI inference. AI inference, the process by which trained models generate answers, content, or predictions, is seeing a sharp uptick in India, according to the firm’s head of infrastructure for India and the Middle East.

The estimate covers the entire Indian data center market, not just Brookfield’s own pipeline. Currently, India’s total installed data center capacity stands at around 1.5 GW, almost entirely allocated to non-AI workloads. Brookfield expects non-AI capacity to grow to about 3 GW, while AI-related demand will expand the market even further. This would nearly triple the country’s total data center footprint from current levels.

Brookfield’s own presence in India includes the Digital Connexion joint venture, which holds 160 MW of capacity. Of that, 60 MW is operational and fully leased. The venture is co-owned by Brookfield, Digital Realty, and Reliance Industries. In addition, Brookfield’s Indian energy platform plans to add 4 to 4.5 GW of renewable energy capacity this year, supporting the power needs of the growing data center sector.

The firm currently manages over $32 billion in assets in India and has set a target to exceed $100 billion over the next five years. The aggressive expansion underscores India’s emergence as a major AI infrastructure market, where scalable data center capacity and reliable renewable energy are becoming critical enablers for hyperscale and enterprise AI deployments.