Billionaire Robin Khuda’s AirTrunk To Invest $21 Billion In Data Center Project Near Mumbai

air trunk——Data center company founded by Australian billionaire Robin CudaAnd with the support of U.S. private equity firm Blackstone, it will develop a 3-gigawatt data center project in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, with a planned investment of 2 trillion rupees ($21 billion).

The project is Announce Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis broke the news on X (formerly known as Twitter) after the two parties signed a letter of intent to purchase the land for the project, which will be located in the Raigad area on the outskirts of India’s financial capital Mumbai.

“We have exchanged a letter of intent for land allocation at Raigad Pen Growth Center (Orange City) for the construction of an upcoming data center, a huge investment of Rs 2 trillion with a capacity of 3 GW,” Fadnavis said in the post. AirTrunk did not respond Forbes Asiarequest for comment.

Headquartered in Sydney, AirTrunk has been expanding its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region, with operations in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

In April, the company expanded in India by acquiring Lumina CloudInfra, which was founded by Blackstone and is a major shareholder in AirTrunk. Lumina plans to build 600 megawatts of data center capacity and up to $5 billion in development potential.

Data center investments in India are booming as demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing continues to grow. The trend has also attracted the country’s wealthiest business tycoons. Reliance Industries, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, and Adani Enterprises, led by Gautam Adani, both plan to invest about $100 billion in data centers and other digital infrastructure projects across India in the next few years.

Bangladeshi-born Khuda has an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion, making him one of Australia’s richest people, according to real-time data from Forbes. He founded AirTrunk in 2015 and grew the company to have a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2024, a consortium led by Blackstone and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired AirTrunk for $16 billion. Khuda is AirTrunk’s CEO and retains a small but valuable stake in the company.

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