Meta to set up its first data center in India at Reliance Industries Chennai campus

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is reportedly setting up its first data center in India at the Reliance Industries campus in Chennai. This decision, which followed discussions between Meta and Reliance Industries, highlights the importance of the Indian market to Meta.

The new data center will allow Meta to process data for Indian users locally instead of its Singapore center. This move is also expected to result in faster data processing, improved user experience, and reduced costs.

The Chennai campus, a joint venture of Brookfield Asset Management, Reliance Industries, and Digital Realty, spans 10 acres and is designed to support a 100-Megawatt IT load capacity.

Meta's investment is also seen as a response to increased scrutiny over AI technologies by the Indian government. The local data center will support AI-driven applications, including Meta's Llama series of large language models, enhancing the development and fine-tuning of AI applications within India.

Meta's user base in India significantly exceeds its US user base, with the company reporting a substantial increase in advertisement revenue from India during its last quarterly earnings call. 

The expansion of Meta's data center operations in India is reflective of a larger trend among tech giants to localise data storage and processing, in line with India's growing data center industry and stricter rules introduced by the Personal Data Protection Act.