Anita Verma-Lallian / Kevin Scanlon

Anita Verma-Lallian, founder and CEO of Arizona Land Consulting, recently secured regulatory approval for two major projects in the American Southwest. The approvals include a 273-acre commercial mixed-use and light industrial development in Casa Grande and a massive data center infrastructure project in Tonopah.

Arizona Land Consulting specializes in large-scale infrastructure, residential and commercial real estate. According to Verma-Lallian, the Tonopah data center infrastructure development at the Hassayampa Ranch site is a direct response to the global artificial intelligence boom. “The rapid adoption of AI has created a massive demand for data centers, driving hyperscalers to build sprawling new campuses,” Verma-Lallian, who has emerged as a top player in the Arizona AI infrastructure sector, said. “We anticipated this trend about four years ago and began developing land specifically for this sector. Following a major 2,000-acre land sale two years ago, we partnered with Chamath [billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya] last year to acquire our latest site. We just secured the zoning approvals to move forward with a 2-gigawatt data center campus.”

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While highlighting that Arizona has emerged as a critical data center market, Verma-Lallian also talked about how each project is reshaped following direct engagement with local residents and stakeholders. “There’s been a lot of resistance in the U.S. to some of these data center projects, and people don’t like them close to their homes. So, we worked very closely with the neighbors in the area to make sure that they were happy with the way that we were planning our data center. And it’s been a very exciting time because things are moving so quickly and we’re starting to see more and more demand for these data centers,” she said.

Verma-Lallian, who is one of the largest landowners in Casa Grande with approximately 5,000 acres across Arizona, believes in being agile and flexible. “We are working on exciting partnerships to get our data centers to the next spot. One of the big things that we’re spending a lot of our time on is figuring out the best way to get power to our site and having it ready for a data center campus. And for the future, we are in the process of acquiring additional land for data centers,” she said.

Sustainability, Verma-Lallian said, is central to all the projects that she undertakes. “In the past, data centers were not as sustainable. They used a lot of water and made a lot of noise,” she said. But as technologies have evolved, they have become much more efficient, according to her. “A lot of data centers now are not using any water. They are being air-cooled. And while they are really big power users, most data center developers are looking at doing on-site generation or working with the utilities where they are paying for all the infrastructure upgrades. We are also working toward potentially doing some solar renewable energy,” she said.

Her father, Kuldip Verma, is the founder of Vermaland, one of Arizona’s large real estate companies, but Verma-Lallian has built her own business independently. And the journey has been a challenging one. “The real estate development sector is very male-dominated across the board and typically by older men. I have had to really work hard to prove myself and to be taken seriously early on, and a lot of people would be very dismissive and didn’t think I had what it takes to get some of these projects done. So, I have had to just work harder than a lot of my counterparts to prove myself,” she said. And she feels that she has been fortunate to have had some great successes and a good track record to point to. “My dad has been doing real estate for a long time, so having learned from him and seeing his experience has been helpful. And then my mom was a doctor in a very male-dominated field and a young immigrant from India at 22. So, seeing her navigate that challenge early on has also been very inspiring for me,” she said.

Verma-Lallian is also upbeat about the entertainment industry and her company Camelback Productions, through which she has backed Hollywood films. “We look at the Hollywood movie business as a sort of extension of our real estate business. We follow a similar strategy where we are looking for good projects that we think have global and commercial appeal and we put together the financing and the overall strategy behind it,” she said. She is also having fun getting involved in something creative, in storytelling and shaping culture. An important goal that Verma-Lallian has is to amplify South Asian actors and stories in a global way. “It has always been fascinating to me that India has such a big film industry with Bollywood. And being able to bring some of that to the U.S. is something that’s really inspiring to me.”

Being well connected with the South Asian and Indian American community through her businesses is an intentional step for her. “There is a pretty big South Asian network and I meet a lot of people through different events. For instance, there’s a big South Asian Oscars event that happens every year, which a lot of the people in the industry attend. And so that’s a great way to meet actors or directors, producers, even other film investors.” Verma-Lallian’s Indian heritage is a big part of her life. “My parents are immigrants and we were so exposed to Indian culture growing up, from watching Bollywood movies to all the events including Diwali, Garba and the big pujas. And I try to expose my kids to it as much as I can as well.”

Verma-Lallian likes to post often on her Instagram handle. “I am doing so many different things in the real estate business, with movies and, now, in the AI data center space. Then there’s also the personal front. So, for me, that’s a good platform to showcase all the different things that are going on.”

Discover more at New India Abroad.