The rise of gigawatt-scale data centres: Powering the next era of AI and digital infrastructure

By Brahma Reddy, President – Datacenter Infrastructure, CtrlS Datacenters

The global digital economy is entering an inflection point. Artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC), Neocloud and hyperscale cloud are reshaping infrastructure needs. AI-ready data centre capacity demand could grow by about 33% annually until 2030, shifting planning from megawatts to gigawatts. Leading markets are expanding data centre campuses and building gigawatt-scale ecosystems for AI factories, clouds, and advanced workloads.

This is not incremental growth but a structural transformation in how digital infrastructure is built, financed, and powered.

India’s data centre industry is on the brink of exponential growth, with total capacity expected to reach 3 GW by 2030. Nearly 100 GW of new data centre capacity will be added globally between 2026 and 2030, doubling global capacity.

The AI catalyst: From megawatts to gigawatts

At the centre of this shift is AI. Unlike traditional enterprise workloads, AI ...