New Delhi, Oct 22
According to a research released on Tuesday, India’s data center operational capacity is expected to more than double from 950 MW in FY24 to 2,000-2,100 MW by FY27, requiring an investment of between Rs 50,000 and Rs 55,000 crore.
A small number of companies, including NTT Global Data Centers, STT Global Data Centers, CtrlS Data Centers, Sify Technologies, and Nxtra Data Limited, control the majority of the data center capacity in India. As of March 2024, they held an 85% operational capacity share.
However, a report by credit rating agency ICRA stated that numerous new developers, including Yotta, Digital Connexion, Lumina CloudInfra, CapitaLand, Digital Edge, and others, have entered the market with significant expenditures due to the high demand for data centers in the nation.
Anupama Reddy, VP and Co-Group Head-Corporate Ratings at ICRA, stated that “some of the key triggers for data explosion are low data tariff plans, access to affordable smartphones, adoption of new technologies, and growing user base of social media, e-commerce, gaming, and OTT platforms.”
Significant prospects are also presented by the artificial intelligence (AI)-led demand, which is predicted to grow multifold over the next three to five years.
“This, along with the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, the infrastructure status, and favorable regulatory policies from the federal and state governments, are supporting the DC growth prospects,” Reddy continued.
Most (80–85%) of DC’s national revenue comes from co-location services, which are supported by hyperscalers.
Six Indian cities account for around 95% of the country’s current capacity, with Mumbai and Chennai dominating the race because of their natural advantages in the form of dense wet cable ecosystems that provide the best latencies (the time it takes for data to move from one location to another).
The paper states that DC players are likely to invest in green power to meet their power needs, given the ESG considerations for the majority of the key tenants.
Green electricity makes for nearly 75% of total power consumption for the top three DC operators globally.
The research found that “for Indian DC players, it is currently below 5 percent as a percentage of total power consumption, though this is projected to increase to 20-25 percent by 2028.”
