India’s future global influence will depend on energy security and digital infrastructure, Gautam Adani said while addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Annual Business Summit 2026 on Monday. The Adani Group chairman stressed that India must develop sovereign capabilities across the entire artificial intelligence value chain.
Speaking about changing global dynamics, Adani said decades of globalisation are being reshaped by geopolitical fragmentation. “The world that is emerging is not flat. It is fractured and contested,” he said.
He highlighted how semiconductors, data and AI infrastructure are becoming strategic national assets. “Semiconductors have become instruments of statecraft. Data is being treated as a national resource. Clouds are being weaponised. And Artificial Intelligence is being built behind the protective walls of data centres,” Adani stated.
Calling energy and digital security the “twin pillars of national power,” he said countries controlling energy and computing infrastructure would shape the future global order.
Adani urged India to view AI as strategic infrastructure rather than only software. He said AI now includes energy, chips, cooling systems, data centres, networks, governance and talent. “India must not rent the infrastructure of its intelligence future. India must build it, power it and own it on its own soil,” he said.
The billionaire industrialist reiterated the group’s previously announced USD 100 billion investment towards energy transition and digital infrastructure. This includes the 30-GW renewable energy project at Khavda in Gujarat and partnerships with Google and Microsoft for India’s data centre and sovereign compute ecosystem.
According to Adani, India crossed 500 GW of installed power capacity in March 2026 and is expected to scale up to 2,000 GW by 2047. He also projected India’s AI-driven data centre capacity to rise from 5 GW by 2030 to nearly 75 GW by 2047.
Adani said AI should be used to improve productivity, create jobs and support small businesses instead of being viewed only as a threat to employment. “The real measure of AI will not be how many jobs it replaces. The real measure will be how many Indians it empowers,” he added.
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