- Project: India’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) dedicated exclusively to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Location: Nava Raipur, Chhattisgarh (a strategic Tier-2 city location).
- Developer & Investment: RackBank Datacenters is investing ₹1,000 crore (scalable up to ₹ 3,000 crore).
- Infrastructure (AI Data Hub):
- Size: Spread over 6 acres, with a $1.5\text{ lakh sq. ft.}$ facility.
- Capacity: Designed for high-density racks (150 kW) and scalable to 80 MW (up to 160 MW).
- Hardware: Capable of housing over 60,000 GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) for intensive AI/LLM workloads.
- Sustainability: Built as a carbon-neutral facility, utilising 100% renewable energy and advanced cooling (e.g., direct-to-chip liquid cooling) to achieve low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
- Objectives:
- Foster AI research, development, and deployment, positioning India as a producer and host of AI services, not just a consumer.
- Attract global giants (e.g., Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta) through SEZ incentives (tax benefits, regulatory relaxation).
- Generate local high-skilled employment (IT engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity) and reduce youth migration from central and eastern states.
This initiative makes Nava Raipur a critical hub for India’s sovereign AI infrastructure and digital economy backbone.