Lightstorm bets $500 mn on fibre networks to tap India’s AI data centre boom
Mumbai: India’s growing artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions are opening up opportunities for smaller network infrastructure players to challenge established operators for a share of the country’s connectivity market. Singapore-based Lightstorm Telecom Connectivity Pvt. Ltd, which entered India seven years ago, is one such company. It has spent $500 million on fibre networks, data centre connectivity and subsea cables linking India to the rest of the world.
In an interview with Mint, Amajit Gupta, group chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Lightstorm, said the company has already spent nearly $500 million (around ₹4,750 crore today) on two projects. These include an ‘AI corridor’ that connects key undersea internet cable landing sites with top data centre locations in the southern half of India, and ‘I-2SEA’—a 3,600km-long subsea cable connecting mainland India with Singapore and Malaysia.
“Our thesis is that it’s not about the quantity of fibre available in India, but its quality. The gap between India and the rest of the world, particularly Western markets, is very high. If you look at the US and Europe, companies are laying enormous amounts of fibre to connect GPUs (graphics processing units). But India’s bigger problem is quality. We don’t even have the basic quality of fibre infrastructure needed to connect AI data centres,” Gupta said, underlining the reason for the company’s heavy capital expenditure in fibre networks in the country.
Lightstorm Telecom was incorporated in India in March 2019. In fiscal year 2025 (FY25), the latest fiscal year for which reports are available from the ministry of corporate affairs, the company reported operating revenue of ₹476.4 crore and a net loss of ₹103.4 crore. Its net borrowings stood at ₹1,541 crore, more than double the ₹611 crore reported in FY23.
The company competes with Tata Communications Ltd, Sterlite Technologies Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd and others for a share of India’s fiber network connectivity industry.
Lightstorm is significantly smaller than its key competitors—in FY25, Tata Communications reported ₹23,109 crore in revenue, while Sterlite Technologies reported ₹3,996 crore in revenue. Airtel Business, meanwhile, reported ₹22,094 crore in revenue. However, each of these figures include services that they offer alongside pure-play fibre connectivity for businesses and data centres.
To capitalize on this opportunity, Gupta said Lightstorm is looking to invest in India’s growing AI and data centre infrastructure. Mint’s review of the company’s $500 million capital outlay showed that at least half— ₹2,500 crore—was raised over the past two months. On 11 August, the company raised this amount as debt from IndusInd Bank Ltd to fund future business growth, according to a statement issued at the time.
Data centre scale-up
Lightstorm’s rivals are also stepping up investments. Bharti Airtel’s data centre subsidiary, Nxtra, plans to expand its capacity to 1GW over the next few years, giving the telecom group greater scope to scale up in-house. On 29 July, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, chief executive and managing director of Tata Communications, told Mint in an interview that data centres could present the company with a $1 billion revenue opportunity.
This, industry experts said, is one of the most direct revenue opportunities for network infrastructure providers. Naresh Singh, senior director analyst at consultancy firm Gartner, said that as India expands its data centre capacity, the business opportunity for fibre and connectivity providers is “as significant as that of data centre providers.”
“AI operators need significant capacities of optical fibres to manage their growing AI operations across multiple sites of data centers. Users need more bandwidth and dedicated links to carry their AI traffic. The opportunity is ample, as many AI data centres are being built in new hubs leading to the need for completely new fibre routes,” Singh added.
Gupta declined to disclose details of Lightstorm’s future capital expenditure plans, saying the company had “enough money to fund its near-term plans.”
“Our debt requirements are covered for the short and medium term. We don’t need money right now, but we may raise equity, either primary or secondary, or both. That will depend on the opportunities that come our way, both in India and overseas, where we may need funds not just to build new businesses but also to acquire them,” he said.
A review of Lightstorm’s financial statements showed that the company had cash reserves of ₹93.53 crore as of FY25. It had not filed its FY26 financial statements as of press time.