India, June 24 -- India's energy story is entering its next, more complicated chapter. For the past decade, the mission was capacity addition - put up as much as solar and wind as we can. That mission is from over, but the nature of demand is changing faster than many of plans, The next surge will not be driven by only factories, homes or electric vehicles. It will come from two quieter, but voracious, forces: The need to keep India cool and the need to process the its data.

The number tell the story. India's cumulative renewable capacity bas reached 279.26 GW as of April 2026--154 GW from solar, 56.44 from wind. In April alone, we added nearly 4,000 MW of solar and 342 MW of wind. That is impressive by any global standard. But demand is...