Last week, New Delhi hosted the largest artificial intelligence summit the world has yet seen. The chief executives of OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, and Google DeepMind were there. So were heads of state, finance ministers, and the senior trade and technology officials of the Trump administration. More than 250,000 people attended over four days.  [1]The numbers announced from the stage were extraordinary: Reliance and Adani together committed over $200 billion to AI data center infrastructure in India.  [2]Microsoft pledged $50 billion in AI investment across the Global South by the end of the decade. [3] OpenAI struck a deal with the Tata Group to deploy 100 megawatts of compute in India, with a stated ambition to scale that to a gigawatt. [4]

Every one of those announcements is, at its core, an energy announcement.

AI runs on power. A hyperscale AI data center of the kind being built today can consume 100 megawatts or more of continuous electricity, and the largest planned facilities will consume several times that. A gigawatt of power, the number OpenAI put on the table with Tata, is not a peak load. It is a permanent one, equivalent to a large baseload power plant running at full capacity every hour of every day. The Adani buildout, measured across multiple gigawatts of planned capacity, will require power infrastructure on par with what mid-sized cities consume.  [5]The 20,000-plus GPUs contemplated in the Blackstone-backed Neysa raise are machines that generate enormous heat, run around the clock, and demand a reliable, affordable supply. [6] When you add it all together, the companies that gathered in New Delhi to talk about artificial intelligence just created one of the largest new sources of electricity demand on the planet.

For energy companies on both sides of the U.S.-India corridor, this is the moment to pay attention.

The outbound story is the one getting the headlines. American technology and capital are flowing into India, and the power infrastructure required to support it will be enormous. But the inbound story is equally significant, and in some respects more immediately actionable for companies seeking American legal counsel. Indian energy and infrastructure conglomerates are not simply building data centers at home. They are acquiring technology, contracting with American suppliers, raising capital from U.S. institutional investors, and in a growing number of cases establishing or expanding direct operations in the United States. Adani, Reliance, and Tata are not unfamiliar names on American power desks. They are active participants in U.S. energy markets, and the AI infrastructure build-out will accelerate that participation considerably. [7]

For an Indian or international energy company entering the United States, the legal requirements are immediate and unforgiving. Acquiring U.S. assets or establishing operations here requires navigation of federal and state regulatory frameworks that vary by sector and jurisdiction. Energy transactions trigger review under the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, which has expanded its scrutiny of foreign investment in infrastructure, data, and power assets considerably in recent years. Equity raises involving U.S. institutional capital require compliance with American securities laws. Technology transfers, licensing arrangements, and supply contracts with American counterparts carry export control implications under the Export Administration Regulations and, in some cases, sanctions considerations as well. Tax structuring for cross-border investment, whether through joint ventures, subsidiaries, or holding structures, requires careful planning from the outset to avoid costly reorganizations later. None of this is insurmountable. All of it requires counsel who knows the American system from the inside.

The Pax Silica agreement, signed at the summit and formally linking India to a U.S-led framework covering critical minerals, semiconductors, energy infrastructure, and data center development, will accelerate deal flow in both directions.  [8]American companies will move into India with greater confidence as the bilateral commercial architecture deepens. Indian and international companies will find the U.S. market more accessible and more strategically essential, as the two governments align their technology and energy priorities. The companies best positioned to capture that opportunity are those that move now, before the regulatory and commercial frameworks are fully settled and before their competitors have established relationships and market position.

The practical need on the inbound side is straightforward. A foreign company entering the U.S. energy or infrastructure market needs an American lawyer who understands both the transactional mechanics and the regulatory landscape, who can structure an investment to withstand CFIUS scrutiny, who can advise on the tax implications of different entry structures, and who can coordinate across the multiple practice areas that a serious cross-border transaction invariably requires. It also needs counsel who understands the Indian commercial context well enough to bridge the gap between what clients expect at home and what the American system actually requires. That combination is rarer than it should be.

This column will cover the U.S.-India commercial relationship as it develops, with a focus on what it means for companies operating in energy, infrastructure, trade, and technology on both sides of the corridor. The work flows in both directions. So does the opportunity.

The summit is over. The construction is beginning.