Kamal Ghorui
New Delhi: Tata Group and OpenAI entered into a strategic partnership, placing a significant bet on India’s AI infrastructure playbook. In the first phase, TCS will build AI infrastructure with 100MW capacity, scalable up to 1GW. The platform is intended to support next-generation AI training and inference workloads while advancing India’s ambition to become a global AI hub. As part of the global Stargate initiative, OpenAI and Tata Group will develop local, AI-ready data centre capacity focused on data residency, security, and long-term domestic capability. “The infrastructure is designed as a purpose-built AI compute optimised for training and inference workloads,” said N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, at the India AI Impact Summit here on Thursday. He described the partnership as a unique opportunity for OpenAI and TCS to transform industries. OpenAI will become the first customer of TCS’ HyperVault data centre business. Recently, TCS secured $1 billion from private equity firm TPG to advance its AI data centre strategy in India, aligning with its goal of becoming the largest AI-led technology services firm. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “India is already leading the way in AI adoption, and with its talent, ambition, and strong govt support, it is well placed to help shape its future. Through OpenAI for India and our partnership with Tata Group, we’re working together to build the infrastructure, skills, and local partnerships needed to build AI with India, for India, and in India, so that more people across the country can access and benefit from it.“ Tata Group also plans to roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to employees over the coming years, beginning with hundreds of thousands at TCS, making it one of the largest enterprise AI deployments worldwide. TCS will adopt OpenAI’s Codex to standardise AI-native software development across teams. OpenAI will expand its certification programme in India, with TCS becoming the first participating organisation outside the United States. The certifications aim to equip professionals with practical, role-agnostic AI skills applicable across industries. As India positions itself at the centre of the global AI transformation, Tata Group is placing a multi-layered bet on intelligence infrastructure. “We established India’s first large-scale AI-optimised infrastructure for next-generation AI training and inference,” Chandrasekaran said. Beyond infrastructure, he identified data as the second pillar. “We are building an AI data insights platform. Intelligence must become accessible across the full diversity of Indian contexts,” he said. TCS and Tata Communications are jointly building what he described as an “AI operating system for industries”. The final pillar is semiconductors.
