A 150 MW AI campus would draw about 187.5 MW, roughly 2% of Bihar's peak grid demand.
PATNA: CtrlS Datacenters has opened a ₹400 crore data centre in Patna’s Patliputra Industrial Area. It also signed a letter of intent worth about ₹10,000 crore for a 150 MW AI hyperscale facility in Bodh Gaya. Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and CtrlS Founder and CEO Sridhar Pinnapureddy were present at the event around 14 October. Notably, one asset is live, while the larger one remains a non-binding plan.
12 MW, live
The Patna facility offers 12 MW of IT load capacity, and its initial phase of 10 MW accommodates about 1,000 racks. CtrlS positions it as an AI and cloud-ready edge node for enterprises, government bodies, hyperscalers and technology firms across Bihar and Eastern India. It features three-layer security, biometric controls, carrier-neutral connectivity and redundant power. It stands 300 metres from CtrlS’s existing 100-rack edge site in the city. Importantly, this is a commissioned asset, and it gives the state a working proof of concept.
150 MW, promised
The Bodh Gaya project is different in kind. A letter of intent signals policy alignment: the developer expresses interest subject to feasibility, and the state agrees to facilitate land, clearances and utilities. It does not mean capital has been deployed or contracts awarded. Neither side has announced a binding agreement or an operating date.
Consequently, the project must still pass through a detailed project report, land allotment by the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority, grid interconnection and a power purchase agreement. A Cabinet incentive sanction and financial close follow. The rollout is expected to be phased and not a single 150 MW switch-on.
The developer’s record adds some confidence. CtrlS, founded in 2007, runs 19 data centres across nine Indian markets and targets over 4.4 GW by 2030. CPP Investments has committed ₹7,000 crore to the company. Meanwhile, Choudhary set a target of 1,000 MW of data centre capacity in five years and said the state is processing about 13,000 acres for industry.
187.5 MW, the grid question
An AI factory is no ordinary industrial customer. At a power usage effectiveness of 1.25, a 150 MW IT load implies gross demand near 187.5 MW, drawn continuously. Bihar’s historical peak demand runs from about 8,752 MW to 9,350 MW, so one campus would add roughly 2%. However, unlike seasonal farm and household demand, this load stays flat all day and all year.
The generation mix is about 67% thermal, 17% solar and 9% hydro, and regulatory filings point to a renewable procurement shortfall of about 5,645 million units by FY2026-27. Hyperscale clients often require green power, so open-access supply or battery storage will likely be needed. A campus this size also needs 20 to 30 contiguous, non-flood-prone acres, a dedicated high-voltage substation and cooling water. Furthermore, as a landlocked state, Bihar needs redundant fibre routes to Kolkata, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.
₹30 crore against ₹10,000 crore, the incentive gap
Bihar IT Policy 2024 offers a 30% capital subsidy capped at ₹30 crore, which is under 0.3% of the Bodh Gaya outlay. It also provides interest subvention of up to ₹40 crore over five years, 25% reimbursement of power bills for five years and a 10% bonus for units outside Patna and Danapur. Bodh Gaya qualifies for that bonus.
Importantly, a Mega Project clause lets the Cabinet craft custom packages for investments above ₹100 crore, so the final terms are not yet public. Bihar, like many states, has seen a gap between investment announcements and execution. Patna’s commissioning is therefore an encouraging early signal.
Who will rent the racks?
The national backdrop is supportive. Data residency rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act push workloads onshore, and the IndiaAI Mission has allocated over ₹10,300 crore and empanelled more than 38,000 GPUs at subsidised rates. Large training clusters, however, have mostly gathered in metros with submarine cable landings and deep talent pools. Therefore, Bodh Gaya will need anchor leases from cloud providers, large enterprises or central compute tenders to keep power and hardware busy. Competition is also rising, with HCLTech planning a ₹14,257 crore AI data centre in Odisha.
What to watch
Several markers will show whether the letter becomes a campus. Look for land allotment notices from the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority and Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission filings on a dedicated transmission corridor or open-access green power. The Cabinet’s Mega Project package matters too, along with CtrlS’s debt and capex disclosures, groundbreaking and environmental clearances. Anchor tenant announcements, or a bid into IndiaAI Mission tenders, would signal real demand.
Encouragingly, Bihar has moved from policy paper to a working facility in Patna. Ultimately, the Bodh Gaya milestones will show whether a non-metro state can host the compute that India’s AI ambitions need.
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