Capitalising on India’s booming market for data centres, Infibeam Avenues Ltd --- a fintech firm headquartered in GIFT City, Gujarat --- has targeted to set up a network of small-scale data centers at 10 locations in India. These data centres will cost at least ₹200 crore and are expected to be set up within the next 12-18 months.
“To support our expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative, we are making a significant commitment to investing in data center infrastructure. Under our Infibeam Quantum Edge brand, we are establishing a network of localized small-scale data centers, starting with our first operational 2-megawatt data center facility at GIFT City,” Vishal Mehta, chairman and managing director of Infibeam Avenues told businesslinein an exclusive interaction.
The company operates CCAvenue, the second-largest payment gateway in India, and has expanded into the AI sector with the establishment of Phronetic.AI, a vision AI firm.
With India projected to become Asia’s third largest cloud market, reaching $24.2 billion by 2028, this Gujarat-based fintech firm is looking to expand into at least 10 cities with 1 or 2 MW data centre facility, each of which will cost between ₹20-50 crore.
“Traditionally, data centres are a gigawatt business. However, we plan to have small-scale data centres in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gujarat, Delhi, NCR and some of the other Tier-2 cities which are closer to our customers. Our expectations are that we will go upto about 10 locations in the next 12-18 months. These would be 1-2 MW data centres, each of which will require at least ₹20 crore of investment,” Mehta said.
Currently, the data centre market is dominated by foreign firms like Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and others. “The setting up of small-scale data centres completely diversifies risk as you are in multiple locations and are not in one region or state,” he said, adding that this “decentralized model” is essential for mobile edge computing and AI processing, driving improvements in real-time data analytics and user experiences.
Smaller data centres also have more manageable operational expenditure or OPEX and allow incremental growth, the official said. “It’s also an enabler in boosting fintech and e-commerce applications by reducing latency in digital payments and online transactions. Furthermore, it supports regulatory compliance with Digital Personal Data Protection Act, which requires localized data storage. By establishing smaller data centers, we can meet the growing demand in Tier 2 and 3 cities where digital adoption is rapidly increasing,” added Mehta.
These data centres are expected to “break-even” within 24 months and will also be used by Infibeam and its subsidiary Rediff India.