On 23 September 2026 Odisha’s high-level clearance authority approved a 120 MW sovereign AI campus and global capability centre proposed by SentraForge AI, at ₹22,634 crore. It was one of four data centre approvals in that single meeting, and the second-largest by value. The company says it has ₹7,089 crore of equity committed and that it is in execution with a December 2027 facility target. What the state confirmed is the approval, the value and the jobs. Everything about the capacity, the equity and the schedule comes from the company’s own materials. That distinction decides what this record is worth.
1At a glance
2Who SentraForge is
This is the first question a supplier asks about any 120 MW campus, and the public record does not answer it cleanly.
| Source | Description |
|---|---|
| State clearance reporting and national business press | A joint venture between Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) and GVPR Engineers Limited |
| Company materials and company-supplied releases | GVPR Engineers as core equity backer, infrastructure co-promoter and foundational partner. MEIL is not named |
| Company website | SentraForge AI as the project company, in what it describes as the execution phase for a 120 MW sovereign AI campus |
Both GVPR and MEIL are large Indian infrastructure contractors. GVPR is based in Hyderabad with a substantial civil works and power transmission business. That matters commercially: a data centre backed by a civil contractor is a construction-led project, which usually means the building gets built on schedule and the technology partnerships are arranged around it.
Gridvik records GVPR as confirmed because the company names it. MEIL is recorded as reported by the business press and not confirmed in the materials Gridvik reviewed. The distinction is left visible rather than resolved.
If this is an MEIL and GVPR vehicle, it is one of the largest engineering groups in India entering sovereign AI compute, and the balance sheet behind a 120 MW build is not in doubt.
If it is GVPR alone, the project is being carried by a smaller company and the ₹15,545 crore of implied debt becomes the central question. That is a material difference and it should not be smoothed over.
3What the state confirmed, and what it did not
| Item | Who says so |
|---|---|
| Approval by the high-level clearance authority on 23 September 2026 | State government |
| Investment of ₹22,634 crore | State government |
| 2,320 jobs | State government |
| Located in Puri | State government |
| 120 MW of capacity | Company only |
| ₹7,089 crore of committed equity | Company only |
| Financial close underway | Company only |
| Execution phase | Company only |
| Mid-2027 services and December 2027 facility readiness | Company only |
| Site of about 140 acres shared with HCLTech at Tangiapada | Trade press, attributed to the state |
The pattern is worth naming because it recurs in this market. States approve rupees. Companies announce megawatts. The rupee figure is in a government order and therefore reliable. The capacity figure is a website claim. Gridvik records both and marks which is which.
For this record that means the 120 MW is a company claim with no published basis. It is not a state-approved capacity, it has not been converted into racks, and no design document behind it has been released.
4₹188.6 crore per megawatt
₹22,634 crore for 120 MW works out at ₹188.6 crore per megawatt, or about $21.3 million. That is the highest figure in this registry by a wide margin, and roughly three and a half times the standard Indian build cost of ₹52 to ₹56 crore per megawatt.
Three explanations fit, and they are not exclusive.
| Explanation | Effect on the per-MW figure |
|---|---|
| GPUs are inside the number | Enormous. Yotta is spending over $2 billion on GPUs alone inside one 60 MW building, which is more than twice the entire cost of its six-building park |
| The global capability centre is inside the number | Moderate. A large office and services operation with 2,320 jobs attached is a real capital cost that is not a data centre |
| 120 MW is a ceiling reached over a decade | Large. If the first phase is 30 MW and the 120 MW arrives in 2035, the early phases carry the whole figure in this ratio |
| Land, substation, water and internal transmission are inside the number | Moderate. A campus needs infrastructure that a single building does not |
What cannot be concluded is that the project is overpriced. What can be concluded is that ₹22,634 crore and 120 MW do not describe the same object, and any supplier who treats one as a proxy for the other will be wrong by a factor of three.
5The site, described three ways
Three descriptions of where this project is, from sources that include the state government. They may all be true; nobody has published a parcel number.
| Source | Location given |
|---|---|
| State clearance listings | Puri district |
| Company website | Odisha, with no district given |
| Trade press, quoting the state | A 140-acre land parcel near Bhubaneswar at Tangiapada near Info Valley, to serve both the HCLTech and SentraForge projects |
This matters more than a place name usually would. Puri district and the Bhubaneswar periphery are different propositions for power, water and connectivity, and the 140-acre parcel described in trade coverage is a shared hub for two separate approved projects.
If HCLTech and SentraForge both sit inside 140 acres at Tangiapada, the implications are concrete: shared or adjacent grid infrastructure, a shared or at least sequenced water supply, and two separate operators competing for the same local utilities and the same construction labour market at the same time. Gridvik does not assume a shared campus and does not sum the acreage. It records the question.
HCLTech’s announcement describes its site as the Odisha Sovereign AI Park. SentraForge is described as being in Puri. Trade coverage puts both on Tangiapada near Info Valley. Whether these are three names for one place, or two places and one park, is unresolved across two records in this registry.
That is exactly the kind of gap that produces double counting in a market database. See record PRJ-042 for HCLTech’s side of it.
6₹7,089 crore of equity and a closure that is not closed
There is nothing unusual in a project of this size being at financial close at the approval stage. Approval is what you need in order to raise the money. What is unusual is announcing the megawatts, the schedule and the execution phase before the money is closed, and that is a pattern worth recognising rather than a criticism of one company.
7Timeline
- The 46th Odisha high-level clearance authority meeting, chaired by the chief minister, approves SentraForge AI’s ₹22,634 crore AI data centre and global capability centre, with 2,320 jobs claimed. It is one of four data centre and AI approvals worth ₹1,42,941 crore that day.
- National coverage describes the project as a joint venture of Megha Engineering and Infrastructures and GVPR Engineers, with a 120 MW capacity and a site in Puri.
- A company-supplied update is published naming GVPR as core equity backer and infrastructure co-promoter, and describing the project as next-generation sovereign AI compute infrastructure.
- Company-backed coverage describes the project as one of India’s five largest AI facilities and states the capacity can scale as AI requirements grow.
- The company describes itself as in execution with ₹7,089 crore of equity committed and financial closure underway. No land allotment order, power allocation, water allocation, design, contractor award or construction is in the public record
- Company-stated targets for initial services and facility readiness. Not independently verified and not supported by any published construction schedule
8Procurement
Rows with a lock are the paid layer.
9Assumptions and method
10Limits and open questions
11Sources
This record was compiled entirely from publicly available sources, cross-checked against one another.
SentraForge AI official release·SentraForge AI project pages·Government of Odisha clearance·Business Standard·Economic Times Datacenters·BusinessToday·Odisha TV·Mid-Day·The Tribune·Times of India·Pragativadi·Indian Startup News·Vainetra·The News Insight
Gridvik does not publish source URLs on record pages; citations are retained in the internal source register and are available on request.
A record that separates what a state government confirmed from what a company announced about the same project, because in this market they are rarely the same list.
Corrections are free and published with a date.