Gautam Adani to invest $100 billion in new energy and data centres

Gautam Adani will invest $100 billion across sectors such as new energy and data centres over the next decade, the business mogul said in Singapore on Tuesday. As much as 70 per cent of this investment will be in the energy transition sector.

Adani, the world’s third-richest person, was addressing a Global CEOs Conference in Singapore. “As a group, we will be investing over $100 billion in capital over the next decade. We have earmarked 70 per cent of this investment for the energy transition sector,” he said.

“In addition to our existing 20 GW renewable portfolio, the new business will be fuelled by 45 GW of hybrid renewable power generation. The enterprise is spread over 100,000 hectares of land, which is 1.4 times the area of Singapore. This will lead to commercialisation of 30 million tonnes of green hydrogen,” he said.

Also read: Hurun rich list: Adani made ₹1,612 crore per day in last 1 year

Balancing act

This development comes amid intense criticism and pressure from environmental groups against Adani’s financing of new coal mines and fossil-fuel-powered plants. At the same time, however, the billionaire retaliated against criticism over India’s plans to increase the amount of power it generates from fossil fuel.

“Critics would have us instantly get rid of all fossil fuel sources that India needs to serve (its) large population,” he said. It would not work for India, he added.

The Adani group will also build three Gigafactories (facilities for producing batteries for electric cars), he said. One of those would be for a 10 GW silicon-based photovoltaic value chain (to produce solar panels). Another will be a 10 GW wind-turbine-manufacturing facility. The third would be a 5 GW hydrogen electrolyser factory.

Also read: Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod is richest NRI with ₹1.69 lakh crore

Views on China

“The Indian data centre market is witnessing explosive growth. This sector consumes more energy than any other industry in the world, and therefore, our move to build green data centres is a game-changing differentiator,” he said.

“We also just finished building the world’s largest sustainability cloud that already has a hundred of our solar and wind sites running on it—all off a single giant command and control centre that will soon be augmented by a global A-I lab,” the tycoon added.

Incidentally, on Tuesday, Adani lost his brief position as the second-richest person in the world to Jezz Bezos after his group lost $7 billion in a stock market crash.

Adani also shared his views on China at the conference, saying the country will feel increasingly isolated because of its growing nationalism, supply chain shifts, and technology curbs. He pointed out China’s property market meltdown and the resistance to its Belt and Road Initiative in many countries to make his point.