250 MW of AI data centre proposed for Dholera, and what a campus like that needs around it

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of Gujarat and L&T Vyoma signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a 250 MW hyperscale, green AI-ready data centre campus at the Dholera Special Investment Region. The project is proposed in phases, at an estimated ₹25,000 crore, with development proposed to commence in 2028.

The MoU itself is careful, and we will be as careful as it is. In its own words it “represents a statement of mutual intent”, with further cooperation subject to detailed evaluations, definitive agreements and statutory approvals. L&T Vyoma is to run feasibility work on land suitability, infrastructure readiness, availability zones and sustainability; the state is to provide the policy and regulatory framework. Nothing has been built and nothing has been committed.

Two things around it that are not intent

• On 19 February 2026 the Gujarat government notified the operation, management and maintenance of data centres across the state as an essential service under the Gujarat Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1972. That is a gazette notification, and it tells you how the state intends to treat this industry.
• The Gujarat Budget for 2026 carries ₹610 crore for Phase 1 of the logistics and trunk infrastructure project at Dholera SIR.

Why a data centre matters to an industrial plot 46 km away

It does not, directly. Nobody supplies a server hall from a shed on NH 751. What a 250 MW campus does is change the region around it during construction and after: power transmission built to a standard the area did not need before, water and cooling infrastructure, fibre, a construction workforce measured in thousands for several years, and then a permanent operations payroll that eats, sleeps and buys locally.

That is the honest case. A demand engine within an hour’s drive raises the floor under services, housing, logistics and light manufacturing across its catchment. It does not put a customer at your gate.

Dholera SIR is 45.7 km from the park by road. Close enough to be in the same labour and logistics catchment; far enough that you buy land here at Bhavnagar-taluka prices and inside a Category B incentive band, not inside the SIR.

What we are not saying

We are not saying this campus will be built. An MoU signed at a summit is the easiest document in infrastructure to sign and among the commonest to lapse. We record it, with its stage marked plainly, because the pattern of what the state keeps proposing for this corridor is itself information — and because a buyer is better served by an MoU labelled as an MoU than by a brochure that calls it an investment.