IFSCA Proposes GPU Leasing as Financial Product in GIFT City

The International Financial Services Centres Authority on Tuesday proposed letting companies lease graphics processing units and data-center equipment as a financial product inside Gujarat's GIFT City, a move designed to pull AI-infrastructure financing into India's offshore financial zone before competing hubs lock in the market.

The consultation paper, published by the GIFT City regulator, would notify operating leases – including hybrids of operating and financial leases – of GPUs and connected gear as a financial activity under the IFSCA Act. The framework covers GPU and AI servers, rack-scale systems, processors and accelerators, server power-supply units, network switches, and parts and accessories. Allied infrastructure such as cooling equipment, liquid-cooling systems and dedicated power-distribution gear for the leased computing hardware is also included. The definition is technology-neutral, meaning it will cover GPUs, general-purpose GPUs, AI accelerators, tensor processing units, neural processing units and comparable technologies across successive generations.

IFSCA's case for creating the product rests on the capital intensity and rapid obsolescence of AI hardware. Leasing would let data-center operators convert a large upfront outlay into periodic payments while shifting technology-obsolescence and residual-value risks to specialized lessors. The same equipment could be redeployed among lessees as computing workloads change, the regulator said.

India currently accounts for less than 5% of global AI-optimized compute power, compared with more than 70% held by the U.S. and China combined, according to the consultation paper. The country's AI GPU capacity stood at around 38,000 units in October 2025 and is expected to reach 100,000 by the end of 2026. IFSCA estimates that deploying 650,000-700,000 GPUs in Indian data centers over the next five years could create an investment opportunity of about $23 billion.