The India data centre market is expected to grow to $11.6 billion by 2032, growing annually at 10.98 per cent, the Economic Survey FY25 said, noting that the segment was seeing significant growth “fuelled by the expansion of infrastructure and a rising demand for digital services.”

In 2023, India’s colocation data centre capacity reached 977 MW, the capacity addition more than doubling during the year. Over the next four years 1.03 GW is set to be added while another 1.29 GW is planned.

India benefited from lower construction costs, owing to its well-established IT and digitally enabled services ecosystem, as well as relatively affordable real estate with a median of $6.8 million per MW in 2023, compared to $9.17 million in Australia, $12.73 million in Japan, and $11.23 million in Singapore, the Survey noted.

Big conglomerates in India are setting up data centres in India such as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance industries, the Adani Group, Hiranandani group, while STT GDC, CtrlS Datacentres, Equinix, Netmagic have already built up significant capacity in India over the years.

“Cloud computing, technology advancements, 5G rollouts and the digitalisation of BFSI continue to be the demand drivers with Artificial Intelligence workloads to ramp this demand up further,” said consultant Anarock in a recent report.

More than 500 MW capacity is coming up in the cities of Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, which are attracting the most investments in this segment.

Published on January 31, 2025