In less than a year of commissioning a 100MW captive solar plant in Solapur, Maharshtra, NTT-owned data centre company Netmagic is planning another 100 MW captive solar power plant to meet its rapidly growing power needs.

“We have been growing at over 30 percent year on year for the past two years in India. We expect the same momentum to continue this year as well. Therefore, to meet our increased power requirements we are looking at setting up a new solar power plant in Maharashtra,” Netmagic MD and CEO Sharad Sanghi, told BusinessLine.

The last solar power plant was commissioned in partnership with Tata Power last July. However, Netmagic may not stick with Tata Power for the new power plant.

“The rate at which we are growing, we'll need another solar plant. We have identified another partner and location in Maharashtra. Different partners have land in different areas. The second one will start small but will also grow to 100 MW. We currently have three new data centres in the pipeline with 30 MW power capacity each. We would want to be able to grow the capacity. We want partners who can scale with us and within 2-3 years, it should go up to 100 MW,” Sanghi said.

Netmagic’s rapid growth in the market has allowed it to remain independent despite the parent company announcing last year that it had integrated 28 different companies under the NTT Ltd brand.

“NTT is very happy with our growth and the way we have a leadership position in everything. So, for the time being, we'll remain an independent company. We will continue to expand heavily,” Sanghi said.

Netmagic is the largest NTT group company in India, with one of the fastest growth rates as well. Dimension Data, the other big group company in India was merged with NTT Ltd in October and the company’s India head Kiran Bhagwanani took over as NTT Ltd’s India CEO.

Netmagic is in the process of spending ₹3,500 crore to expand data centre capacity in India, with new sites coming up in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Chennai.

“We are also expanding our portfolio of services — new security services, smart vertical solutions for manufacturing etc.” Sanghi said.

The government’s data localisation rule is spurring demand for data centres in India as data centre providers such as Netmagic are seeing demand constantly outpacing growth. The increased demand has seen players from altogether different industries enter the arena.

Real estate giants Hiranandani and Adani group were among the two big players announcing their entry into the data centre business, with a combined investment commitment of over ₹80,000 crore.

And yet, Sharad feels there’s enough room for everyone.

People increasing want to outsource more to players like us. Post the data localisation and data protection bill, a lot of global companies are looking to setup data centres in India for the same reason and they use us as their partner. Then, everything is moving to the cloud. People find it efficient to move to the cloud and trim their capex costs. Clients are trying to outsource more during tough and weakening economy to save cost,” Sanghi said.

Netmagic is also entering the government space for the first time, helping it expand rapidly despite the large base.

“We have recently been empanelled as recognised managed cloud services provider for smart cities. Government vertical is something we didn’t focus on earlier and it’ll help us boost our growth,” Sanghi said.

comment COMMENT NOW