OpenAI is reportedly planning to establish a massive data center in India. The facility is expected to have a capacity of at least one gigawatt, making it one of the largest in the country, reports Bloomberg. The project is linked to the ‘Stargate’ initiative, a multibillion-dollar (around $500 billion) program backed by SoftBank, Microsoft, and Oracle, aimed at building large-scale AI infrastructure across the world to meet the rising computing demands of artificial intelligence (AI).
The move is also part of the ChatGPT maker’s ‘OpenAI for Countries’ initiative, which is designed to help nations develop sovereign AI infrastructure that aligns with their regulatory, ethical, and economic requirements. Notably, India is already the company’s second-largest market by number of users, and OpenAI has been preparing to expand its presence.
According to the report, while the broad plan for OpenAI’s India project is clear, some important details are yet to be finalised. The exact location has not been revealed, and there is no confirmed timeline for when construction or operations will begin. The Microsoft-backed company is said to be in discussions with local partners who may help build and run the facility, and more information could be announced during CEO Sam Altman’s visit to India in September 2025. Actually, large data centers of this kind are usually built by major tech companies or as part of national infrastructure projects. For AI, the need is even greater, since training powerful models requires massive computing power and huge amounts of energy.
Additionally, the presence of such a large-scale facility could also help OpenAI address regulatory and business needs. Building servers in India would make it easier to comply with data residency rules, which require certain kinds of data to remain within national borders. It would also improve performance for enterprise users in the region, reducing latency and ensuring faster access to AI tools.
The timing of this development is notable, as it comes just weeks after the AI trendsetter registered as a legal entity in India, began local hiring, and announced plans to open its first office in New Delhi before the year ends. The company has also introduced an India-specific, low-cost plan called ChatGPT Go, priced at ₹399 per month.
However, despite such efforts, the company is still facing significant challenges in India. It is competing with rivals like Google’s Gemini and Perplexity, which are offering aggressive discounts and free plans to attract users. For example, Perplexity recently tied up with Airtel to give its premium service free to over 300 million customers, while Google is offering students a year of free AI Pro. On top of that, OpenAI is also dealing with lawsuits from publishers like Penguin Random House, Cambridge University Press, and S. Chand & Co., who claim their content was used without permission to train its AI models.
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