Bharti Airtel’s data center subsidiary, Nxtra Data, has secured $1 billion in investment to expand its data center network across India.

The funding will come from Alpha Wave Global, The Carlyle Group, and Anchorage Capital, with investments of $435 million, $240m, and $35m, respectively. The remaining $290m will be provided by Airtel.

Airtel said it would maintain a controlling stake in Nxtra, with final shareholding of the other investors subject to finalized post-closing adjustments.

Nxtra will use the funds to scale its infrastructure and broaden its services portfolio.

“At Nxtra, we have built one of India’s most advanced and sustainable data center networks, designed to meet the evolving needs of enterprises, hyperscalers, and government. With ~300 MW capacity today, we aim to scale to 1 GW in the next few years, targeting ~25 percent market share,” said Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman, Airtel.

“Strategic partnerships with global investors and technology leaders are central to our growth roadmap, enabling us to accelerate expansion, harness world-class expertise, and deliver next-generation digital infrastructure solutions at scale. With strong market demand, we are committed to stepping up investments and strengthening India’s position as a leading data center hub."

Nxtra operates 14 large core data centers and more than 120 edge facilities across India. The company offers colocation, cloud infrastructure, managed hosting, data backup, disaster recovery, and Edge computing services.

Airtel says Nxtra is the first data center company in India to deploy AI at scale for predictive maintenance, energy efficiency, and automated operations. The company said that development from this new funding wave would allow it to serve the “evolving needs of enterprises, hyperscalers, and government organizations” across India.

Last year, Alpha Wave Global was reportedly looking to buy out Carlyle’s 24 percent stake in Nxtra, after reports that Carlyle was considering selling its holdings.

Carlyle, founded in 1987, is a global investment and financial services firm with $477 billion in assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2025. The company holds stakes in various data center projects worldwide, counting them as part of its global infrastructure arm, which currently has $6.4 billion AUM.

Speaking on this latest investment round, Kapil Modi, partner at Carlyle, said: “We have built a strong partnership with Airtel and continue to believe Nxtra is well-positioned to benefit from India’s long-term digital infrastructure tailwinds. The company has made significant progress in expanding its capabilities, strengthening customer relationships, and building a scalable platform, and we look forward to further working with Airtel and Nxtra’s management team to build the company into one of the largest data center players in India."

Alpha Wave, formerly Falcon Edge Capital, was founded in 2012. The New York-based firm’s investments include SpaceX, Alibaba, Cerebras, and others. It has some $20 billion in assets under management.

Rick Gerson, co-founder and CIO, Alpha Wave Global, added: "Alpha Wave has a particular focus on identifying and backing AI-first businesses, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Cerebras, SpaceX, X.ai, Ramp, Cognition, and Long Lake Management. We are excited to partner with Mr. Sunil Mittal and the Bharti Group – a franchise defined by outstanding leadership and a remarkable track record of executing at scale alongside institutional investors – as Nxtra scales to become India's leading data center business."

The minority investor in Nxtra's latest funding round, Anchorage Capital, is an India-focused investment fund, involved in a range of investments across medical devices, AI neoclouds, and other technology platforms.