Data centre industry in India

Mumbai holds the largest data centre market with a 44% alone. The total capacity is 289 MW, with 3.6 million sq ft in its functional area. Big data centre giants like Sify, STT, CtrlS, Nxtra Data, Web Werks, NTT etc. In 2020, REIT Equinix signed a deal to invest $161 million to feciliate a 19 MW local operations of GPX. Yotta Infrastructure, AdaniConneX venture had their major data centre projects in Mumbai.[5]

Google has planned to set up a 8-storey 381,000 sq ft data centre in Navi Mumbai by 2025 with an investment of ₹1144 crore in first 10 years. Also Microsoft has plans to build a data centre in Mumbai. CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, which had 8 data centres (as of 2023) aims to have about 25 data centres by 2024–25 in India. It plans to expand 5 million sq ft after its existing 1.2 million sw ft, in which a 2 million sq ft hyperscale data centre is under construction in Navi Mumbai.[6]

Mumbai has emerged as the third biggest data centre market in the Asia-Pacific region, with a total ccapacity at 2,337 MW and breaching the 2GW mark, in 2023, behind Shanghai and Tokyo.[7]

Chennai has a major presence of data centre since it has the market with the second-highest number of undersea cables after Mumbai. Total capacity is 57 MW with 8% market share and a total of 0.92 million sq ft. Chennai is projected to overtake other markets to the second-largest up to 2030. Sify, Yotta, CtrlS, Princeton Digital, STT, and NxtGen have more than one campuses adding to local capacity.[5] The Adani enterprises has signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu government to set up a data centre in Chennai, with an investment of Rs 2,500 crore.[8]

Due to its IT presence, Hyderabad consists the data centre industry with 6% market share, capacity of 38 MW and 0.71 million sq ft area. STT, Sify, and CtrlS are key players in the city.[5]

Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India, has a major data centre presence due to its large IT infrastructure. As of 2020 Bangalore has a total capacity of 162 MW having 1.74 Million sq ft used for data centre. It possesses a 25% of the market share. ESDS, Sungard, Sify, Whitefield Nxtra Data, Evoque, STT, NTT etc. have their data centres here.[5]

Noida, which falls under the Delhi-NCR has a significant data centre industry. It is the only data centre hub in North India. Delhi has a capacity of 72 MW and a total of 1.05 million sq ft with 11% market share.[5]

Google has acquired a 464,000 sq ft facility at Adani Centre in Noida in 2022.[6]

Having IT industry in its main economy, Pune consists data centres with total capacity of 32 MW and 0.44 million sq ft with a 5% market share. National companies like Nxtra, STT, Web Werks Microsoft Azure have set up their campuses in Pune.[5]

Kolkata is the only data centre hub in the East India region with total capacity of 5 MW and 0.07 million sq ft with a market share of 1%. Major players are Sify and STT.[5] Sify has a data centre of 2 MW with 350 rack space.[9]

Multiple data centre projects are under construction. As of 2021, Kolkata comes second in terms of land earmarked for data centres with 195 acres in its forey.[10] Reliance Jio has acquired a 40-acre plot for a data centre. The Adani Enterprise has taken a 51.8 acre plot in the Silicon Valley Hub, New Town to build a hyperscale data centre with ₹10,000 crore investment.[8] Also Bharti Airtel Nxtra Data, has acquired plot to build a hyper-scale data centre of 25 MW (150,000 sq ft) in Kolkata with an investment of ₹600 crore, which is under construction as of 2022. Hiranandani Group is also planning six data centres at Hind Motor, Uttarpara, West Bengal. The group acquired 100 plot at Uttarpara, Hooghly to setup six data centres (total 250MW) with an investment of 8,500 crore.[11]