Pranav Hotkar
Mumbai, India - February 28, 2026 - Essar Group has outlined plans to expand into digital infrastructure by proposing a 1-gigawatt data center project in the United Kingdom that will be powered by green energy, the company’s group chief executive, Prashant Ruia, said at a summit in India.
Addressing the News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Ruia said energy transition remains a strategic focus for the diversified conglomerate even as global momentum has fluctuated following recent policy shifts in the United States. “Energy transition is a huge theme for us across the group,” Ruia said, noting that Essar is aligning its investments with commercially viable green technology solutions.
Beyond traditional energy interests, Essar is now picking digital infrastructure as a key thematic area for growth. “We are proposing to build data centre infrastructure in the UK, where we want to develop a one-gigawatt data centre,” Ruia said. He described Essar’s role as initially focused on generating power and constructing buildings and base infrastructure, enabling major cloud operators like Microsoft and Google to install computing equipment and chips.
The proposed data center project signals a significant overseas expansion for Essar, which has historically been known for oil, gas, and energy operations. The UK facility would form part of Essar’s broader pivot toward green energy and digital infrastructure investment, reflecting rising global demand for power-intensive computing capacity driven by artificial intelligence and increased data consumption.
By focusing on a UK data center footprint, Essar aims to leverage its existing energy capabilities, including its role as a significant supplier of fuel in the British market, while transitioning toward lower-carbon sources. Ruia emphasized that the company’s primary investment focus is on solutions that are “economically viable,” suggesting an integrated model that ties renewable power generation to digital infrastructure build-out.
Essar’s announcement comes amid intensifying global competition in data center development, with companies worldwide racing to secure land, power, and connectivity to support hyperscale cloud workloads. Building a gigawatt-scale facility positions Essar to participate in data center ecosystems that are increasingly central to AI, cloud services, and digitalization strategies.
Ruia also spoke about the company’s leadership succession, noting that the third generation of the promoter family is stepping into active roles within the business, a reflection of Essar’s efforts to blend traditional core sectors with next-generation infrastructure opportunities.
