EQT commits $50bn to India, with $30bn targeting data centres
Swedish private equity firm EQT plans to invest approximately $50 billion in India by 2030, with data centres accounting for $30 billion, renewable energy for $5 billion and private equity for US$15-20 billion.
EQT has already deployed approximately US$10 billion in Indian data centres and expects to deploy a further US$20 billion by 2030, primarily through EdgeConneX, its global data centre platform, and AdaniConneX, its joint venture with Adani Enterprises.
Data centre capacity is expected to grow from approximately 1 GW currently to as much as 5 GW by 2030, driven by hyperscaler leasing demand for AI and cloud infrastructure.
EQT has invested a cumulative US$26 billion in India since inception, beginning in technology services before expanding into healthcare and, most recently, digital infrastructure. EQT Group chair Jean Eric Salata described India as "one of our most important markets globally, not just within Asia," adding that India would "play a disproportionately large role in our strategy going forward, just because of the sheer size of the opportunity."
The US$50 billion commitment is among the largest single declared private equity and infrastructure investment programmes in India's history, and its composition reveals how the investment calculus for large international private capital players has shifted.
Data centres — which accounted for barely any institutional PE capital into India five years ago — now dominate EQT's India deployment thesis at $30bn, while traditional PE (technology services, healthcare) accounts for $15–20bn and renewables a relatively modest $5bn.
The renewable energy allocation is notable given EQT's existing energy transition credentials: the firm has invested across solar, wind and hybrid projects globally, and its India renewable allocation would be a meaningful addition to the country's project finance pool.
The AdaniConneX vehicle through which EQT deploys data centre capital is also structurally significant: it pairs EQT's global data centre expertise (through EdgeConneX, which operates across North America, Europe and Asia) with Adani's Indian land acquisition, permitting and power infrastructure capabilities — a combination that addresses the two most persistent constraints on hyperscale data centre expansion in India.
EQT is also assembling an Early Stage Asia Strategy targeting Series-B and Series-C technology companies, with equity cheques of US$20–50 million for 3–10% stakes, and is separately evaluating AI-first businesses as part of this strategy — positioning the firm across the full lifecycle of Indian technology companies from early venture to mature buyout and alongside the infrastructure underpinning the AI economy.
Hari Gopalakrishnan, co-head of Private Capital Asia, noted that the total Indian buyout market has grown sevenfold in the last 13 years as more founding families seek succession planning partners with sector expertise — a structural demand driver for buyout funds that extends well beyond the AI and data centre cycle.
For India's energy and infrastructure ecosystem specifically, EQT's US$5 billion renewable and US$30 billion data centre allocation implies a combined clean power demand of potentially 4–5 GW just to serve its own Indian data centre portfolio — a captive renewable procurement opportunity that further reinforces the commercial logic of India's integrated solar and renewable-plus-storage development platforms.
Norfund’s $100m AMPIN investment targets $700m in clean-energy capital
Norfund, the Norwegian government's Investment Fund for Developing Countries, has committed an equity investment of up to $100 million in AMPIN Energy Transition through the Norwegian Climate Investment Fund, announced in New Delhi on 21 September 2026.
The investment will support the development of approximately 2 GW of new solar and wind capacity backed by energy storage in India by 2028, and Norfund expects the $100m to mobilise up to US$700 million in additional private capital through a combination of equity co-investment and project-level debt financing.
The investment takes AMPIN's total equity capital raised to nearly US$1 billion, underpinning a cumulative capital deployment of over US$4 billion across its project portfolio. AMPIN currently operates 2.5 GW of renewable energy capacity from its total 6.3 GW and 5.5 GWh portfolio, serving customers across 10 sectors including pharmaceuticals, automotive, cement, steel, data centres and utilities.
The company also operates 1.3 GW of solar cell and 1.9 GW of module manufacturing capacity, positioning it as one of India's more integrated renewable energy platform businesses.
The Norfund transaction adds a structurally distinct dimension to AMPIN's capital table that goes beyond the US$100 million headline. Development Finance Institution equity is categorically different from commercial or institutional PE equity: it carries longer tenor expectations, lower short-term return pressure and a signalling function that reduces perceived country and project risk for co-investors and commercial lenders.
Norfund's own committed portfolio totals US$4.5 billion, invested across Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America; its India renewable energy track record includes earlier positions in ReNew Power and Enel Green Power India. The Norwegian Climate Investment Fund's mandate explicitly targets the mobilisation of private capital beyond its own direct commitment — and the US$700 million mobilisation expectation against a $100m DFI equity cheque reflects a leverage ratio of 7:1, standard for DFI-structured co-investment vehicles but meaningful confirmation that the fund is designed to crowd in private capital rather than substitute for it.
This investment follows AMPIN's US$195 million project finance facility from SMBC and Rabobank for a 100 MW hybrid project in Andhra Pradesh covered in Indoen's 22 August edition, and a prior US$50 million investment from FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank.
The accumulation of Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish (through the SMBC/Rabobank facility) and North American institutional capital in a single Indian renewable platform in under 12 months represents a meaningful data point: European development capital is systematically choosing India's clean energy sector as a preferred deployment destination, not merely as a compliance or ESG allocation but as a return-seeking infrastructure investment.
Norfund's target of 10 GWp of AMPIN installed capacity by 2030 is, as its EVP Bjørnar Baugerud noted, equivalent to a quarter of Norway's total installed power capacity — a framing that underlines the scale premium that India's renewable market commands against the DFI's home market reference point, and why Indian clean energy platforms are now attracting capital from sovereign-backed development funds that were historically concentrated on Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia's smaller markets.
Indian Oil’s $256m pipeline closes South India’s gas connectivity gap
Indian Oil Corporation has announced a ₹2,449 crore (US$256 million) investment to build and operate a 424.65-kilometre natural gas pipeline connecting Kochi in Kerala to Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, via Kanyakumari. The pipeline will have an overall transmission capacity of 6.84 million standard cubic metres per day (MMSCMD), of which 1.71 MMSCMD is reserved as common carrier capacity for third-party gas transportation.
The route passes through three significant southern nodes — Kochi (Kerala's largest commercial centre and the location of Petronet LNG's 5 MTPA regasification terminal), Kanyakumari (India's southernmost mainland tip) and Thoothukudi (Tamil Nadu's key southern port and industrial hub) — creating for the first time a continuous physical gas corridor connecting Kerala's existing LNG import infrastructure to the southern Tamil Nadu demand basin. No construction schedule or commissioning date was provided with the announcement.
The Kochi-Thoothukudi pipeline addresses one of the most persistent gaps in India's southern gas grid. Petronet LNG's Kochi terminal has operated well below its 5 MTPA capacity for years because of insufficient downstream gas pipeline connectivity — the Kochi-Koottanad-Bangalore-Mangaluru (KKBM) pipeline, intended to evacuate regasified LNG northward, has faced delays and incomplete sections, leaving Kochi's import infrastructure stranded from major demand centres.
The IOC pipeline takes a different direction, routing southward from Kochi through Kanyakumari to Thoothukudi — connecting LNG import capacity to southern Tamil Nadu's industrial and power sector demand rather than attempting the historically contested northward corridor to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
The common carrier provision — 1.71 MMSCMD of the 6.84 MMSCMD total capacity reserved for third-party use — is a structurally important design feature. It signals that the pipeline will function as shared public infrastructure rather than a captive IOC supply line, potentially enabling City Gas Distribution network operators in southern Tamil Nadu, industrial gas buyers and power plants to access competitively priced LNG-sourced gas through open access rather than depending on dedicated contracted supply.
This aligns with India's broader gas market reform objective of building a national gas grid with transparent access rules—an ambition articulated for decades but implemented unevenly. For the renewable energy transition, the pipeline also creates optionality: gas-fired peaking capacity in southern Tamil Nadu, where wind and solar penetration is high and system balancing is increasingly challenging, could access LNG supply through the common carrier segment, supporting the flexibility services variable-renewable-dominated grids increasingly require.
