HCL Tech’s Rs 3,500 crore AI data centre foray: A new growth engine or capital-intensive diversion?

HCL Technologies is investing up to Rs 3,500 crore in AI data centres to build a full-stack AI ecosystem spanning infrastructure, compute and managed services. While the phased investment could create a new growth engine, investors will closely watch capital deployment, returns and demand visibility before assigning meaningful value to the venture.