Rajasthan won’t win ai but MP can.
Ai impact is getting understood
But its architecture is far from settled.
On the 29.11.25, India’s largest infrastructure investing funds met up at the IIT Bombay alumni meet. Sharad Sanghi was on stage describing neoclouds and BharatGen leadership were describing India’s sovereign ai. The conclusion “this isn’t going to happen in Bombay”.
The team shifted to Mahakal in Ujjain. Two of the fund LPs lived in rural MP. Srinivas Rachakonda was growing his own food and had a tiger friend in the buffer zone of Bandhavgarh – around the spot where Ram and Laxman were sent into exile. Another Ambarish Malpani was growing organic vegetables near Bhopal. Both loved it there. Would MP make it ???!!!
The meeting broke to continue yesterday in Jaipur. The Tie Global Summit provided a live backdrop. The sponsors were a motley lot. Dubai Internet City, govt of MP, govt of Rajasthan, govt of Andhra Pradesh. The meity minister attended by video, the MoS was there in person so were two Chief Ministers. Sanjay Dubey made a powerful pitch for MP. He said ai would have to move to Tier 2. And he pitched quality of life, greenery, water, tigers, biodiversity, power, pro active govt. Andhra put up a fight too but they didn’t make it to the final.
So where will the ai dollars go. I got to chair the final debate. And the winner is ??
MP has the enabling fundamentals while Rajasthan structurally resists them. It is about structure, not intent.
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AI Is an Infrastructure Game First
Madhya Pradesh
• Surplus power state (thermal + hydro + rapidly scaling solar)
• Large contiguous land parcels near Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior
• Single-window industrial clearance actually works
• Actively courting data centres, EVs, fabs, defence
Rajasthan
• Land is available, but right-of-way, water, and evacuation are bottlenecks
• Fragmented approvals across departments
• local entrepreneurs refuse to institutionalise.
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Power Quality: The Hidden AI Killer
MP’s Advantage
• Large coal base load (Singrauli cluster)
• Hydro balancing (Narmada basin)
• Can support 24×7 data centre SLAs
• Lower industrial power tariffs for bulk consumers
Rajasthan’s Structural Problem
• Solar-heavy without storage
• Weak intrastate transmission
• High industrial tariffs to subsidise agriculture
• Power cuts still normalized politically
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Talent Reality: AI Is Not a Startup Party
MP’s Play
• Indore as a mid-cost tech city
• IIT Indore + IIM Indore feeding niche talent
• Lower attrition, lower cost of living
Rajasthan’s Limitation
• Jaipur produces graduates but loses them
• No deep research anchors
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Geography Matters
MP
• Central India = low latency to all metros
• Ideal for national-scale data hubs
& sovereign compute
Rajasthan
• Edge geography
• Water stress for cooling at scale
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Madhya Pradesh will succeed in AI
But this is just a debate – not Gods word.
We visit Dubai Internet City next.
Do repost with your comments.
