Synopsis

Lightstorm secured a Rs 2,500 crore debt facility from IndusInd Bank for AI fibre highways. This funding will support the company's AI infrastructure expansion across India. The debt raise follows the announcement of the I-2SEA subsea cable system connecting India and Southeast Asia. Lightstorm plans to expand its domestic fibre capacity over the next year. The company aims for a balanced capital structure with this debt raise.

Mumbai: Network infrastructure provider Lightstorm has raised a Rs 2,500 crore debt facility from IndusInd Bank to build "AI fibre highways" connecting AI data centre clusters across India.

The 10-year fully underwritten debt facility will fund the next phase of the company's AI infrastructure expansion.

"This entire raise of Rs 2,500 crore is going to fund what we think is the first large fundraise for AI fibre infrastructure across India," Amajit Gupta, group CEO and managing director of Lightstorm told ET.

The debt raise comes weeks after Lightstorm announced the I-2SEA subsea cable system connecting India with Singapore and Malaysia. The consortium includes Microsoft, Tata Communications, and Singtel with all of them serving as co-owners of the cable. Gupta said the project would provide the connectivity backbone for AI data centres across India and Southeast Asia.

The company plans to expand its domestic fibre capacity by creating a dedicated AI corridor connecting major data centre hubs such as Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad while linking them to hyperscale AI zones in Singapore and Malaysia. Gupta said the domestic network expansion is expected to be completed over the next year.

He explained that AI workloads require an entirely different networking architecture from conventional telecom or cloud networks. "The infrastructure for AI has to be custom-built, has to be purpose-built, has to be fit to AI," he said. "The same infrastructure which was fit for the internet, connecting homes, towers or even the cloud is not exactly the network infrastructure that would be fit to connect AI."

Owned by US private equity firm I-Squared Capital, Lightstorm is a relatively new entrant in the fibre assets space and competes with incumbents like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to gain a share in the enterprise fibre network market.

In February 2025, it had raised Rs 700 crore in debt from the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).

When asked about the decision to opt for another debt raise instead of equity, Gupta said the five-year-old company had entered a new phase of capital allocation. "We have crossed the incubation stage... Now we have to take care of a healthy capital structure. We had choices of raising more equity, and we probably will, but we want to keep the capital structure in a balanced manner rather than make it all debt or all equity," he said.

Lightstorm's existing network spans over 30,000 km of terrestrial fibre, 21,000 km of subsea fibre and more than 100 connected data centres, serving hyperscalers operating in India.

On a potential public listing, Gupta said accessing capital through an IPO is not an immediate priority. "Funding-wise, we are adequately funded even now. Public markets just to access funds is not really a priority, but there are many other reasons why companies like to go public, and we would like to keep that option open for us in the near future," he said.