India's Adani Group To Invest $100-B In Next Decade

India's Adani Group will invest more than $100 billion in the next decade, its high-profile chairman said on Tuesday, as the already-sprawling conglomerate ramps up its push for more growth, Sayan Chakraborty reported for Nikkei Asia.

Photo Insert: Gautam Adani, one of the world's richest people, said that around $70 billion of that would be spent on the group's green energy business -- expenditure that had been largely flagged before.

Gautam Adani, one of the world's richest people, said that around $70 billion of that would be spent on the group's green energy business -- expenditure that had been largely flagged before.

"As a group, we will invest over $100 billion of capital in the next decade," Adani told a Forbes conference in Singapore. "We have earmarked 70% of this investment for the energy transition space. We are already the world's largest solar player, and we intend to do far more."

The group's aggressive drive into green energy is in line with the Indian government's ambitions to drastically cut the nation's dependence on fossil fuels.

The chairman said the group wanted to be an inexpensive producer of green hydrogen, which is extracted from water in a process powered by renewable energy. It also expects to build three huge factories to manufacture items including solar modules and wind turbines, as well as constructing green data centers.

The massive capital commitment comes at a time when shares in various publicly traded Adani Group firms have surged on the back of vigorous debt-fueled expansion, which in turn set Gautam Adani's personal fortune soaring.

But the group has company in the race to lead India's green energy charge. Reliance Industries could double its 750-billion rupee ($9 billion) commitment to set up a "new energy manufacturing ecosystem," its head, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, said last month.

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