HCLTech, Sarvam Plan $1.48B AI Data Center in Odisha

HCLTech and Sarvam Put $1.48 Billion Behind India's Sovereign AI Park

India's third-largest IT services firm is building its first AI data center with a domestic model startup and a state government — and the headline figure includes the state's own money.

Jul 25, 2026Source: HCLTech

HCLTech will build its first AI data center in Bhubaneswar with model startup Sarvam AI and the government of Odisha, under a memorandum covering a planned outlay of Rs 142.57 billion — roughly $1.48 billion.

Where it goes

The site is the planned Odisha Sovereign AI Park. Alongside it, HCLTech will open a separate Global Technology Centre housing 5,000 people, operational by 2028. The signing was attended by chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi, HCLTech chair Roshni Nadar Malhotra, chief executive C Vijayakumar and Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar.

Four things the coverage gets wrong

It is a memorandum, not a binding contract or a final investment decision. The headline figure is a combined outlay that includes state financial assistance, yet is widely reported as HCLTech investing Rs 14,257 crore of its own. The 5,000 jobs belong to the technology center, not the data center. And no source anywhere states a megawatt figure, GPU count or online date — so the actual scale of the "AI data center" is unverifiable.

Who Sarvam is

Sarvam AI builds foundation models for Indian languages and was selected under India's national AI mission to develop a sovereign model. Pairing it with HCLTech's infrastructure is the intended shape of that policy — domestic models trained on domestic compute, with a state government underwriting part of the capital.

The shift underneath

Indian IT services firms built their businesses running other companies' infrastructure. Owning AI compute — with a domestic model lab as partner — is a different position on the value chain.

And a bidding war

India's sovereign AI push is turning into subsidized competition between states for anchor tenants. Odisha is buying one.

Why It Matters

Sovereign AI has mostly meant national governments buying GPUs. Here a state government is co-funding a private data center with a domestic model lab attached, which is a template other Indian states will copy — and a reason to read every announced figure for how much of it is public money.