Blackstone is backing Indian AI infrastructure startup Neysa with a financing plan of up to $1.2 billion, marking one of the most significant commitments in India’s emerging domestic AI infrastructure space. The investment comes as India intensifies efforts to build sovereign AI capabilities and reduce reliance on overseas compute capacity.
Under the agreement, Blackstone and a group of co-investors — including Teachers’ Venture Growth, TVS Capital, 360 ONE Asset, and Nexus Venture Partners — will invest up to $600 million in primary equity in Neysa. The deal will give Blackstone a majority stake in the Mumbai-headquartered company. In addition to the equity infusion, Neysa plans to raise a further $600 million in debt financing to rapidly expand its GPU infrastructure footprint. The scale of this funding represents a sharp jump from the $50 million the startup had previously raised.
The timing of the deal reflects surging global demand for AI computing power. As organizations race to train and deploy large models, shortages of specialized chips and data center capacity have become increasingly apparent. This environment has fueled the rise of AI-focused infrastructure providers, often described as “neo-clouds,” which offer dedicated GPU capacity and faster deployment cycles than traditional hyperscale cloud providers. These platforms are particularly attractive to enterprises and AI labs with specific needs around regulation, data localization, latency, and customization.
Neysa operates squarely within this growing segment. It markets itself as a provider of customized, GPU-first infrastructure tailored to enterprises, government bodies, and AI developers across India. While domestic demand for local compute remains at a relatively early stage, it is expanding quickly as businesses and institutions look to build AI capabilities within the country.
“A lot of customers want hand-holding, and a lot of them want round-the-clock support with a 15-minute response and a couple of our resolutions. And so those are the kinds of things that we provide that some of the hyperscalers don’t,” said Neysa co-founder and CEO Sharad Sanghi.
Blackstone’s investment thesis is closely tied to the anticipated scale-up of AI hardware in India. Ganesh Mani, a senior managing director at Blackstone Private Equity, noted that the firm estimates India currently has fewer than 60,000 GPUs deployed. He expects that number to grow nearly 30-fold to more than two million in the coming years.
According to Mani, this projected expansion will be driven by multiple forces: rising government demand, enterprises in regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare that must keep sensitive data within national borders, and domestic AI developers building and training models locally. In addition, global AI labs — many of which count India among their largest user markets — are increasingly seeking to deploy computing resources closer to end users to minimize latency and comply with data requirements.
Through the planned equity and debt financing, Neysa aims to significantly accelerate the buildout of domestic GPU clusters, strengthening India’s AI-ready infrastructure for enterprises, public sector agencies, and technology innovators. The transaction positions the company as a key player in India’s broader ambition to create scalable, locally controlled AI compute capacity at a time when global competition for infrastructure is intensifying.
