India has experienced rapid digitisation over the past decade, emerging as one of the fastest-growing digital economies in the world. While India experiences a ‘data downpour,’ most cloud services facilities to store, process, and secure data are based out of the West. With data privacy regulations and mandates, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, the government of India is shifting the narrative from data consumption to the need for local data centres. To boost data centre localisation in India, the government has launched initiatives such as 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI), SEZ benefits and tax incentives.

At present, 90 per cent data centres in India are concentrated in five major cities — Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Hyderabad. These cities have reliable power supply, strong fibre optic connectivity and robust IT infrastructure, making them natural hubs for data centres. Data centres are extremely energy intensive and house thousands of servers, networking equipment that continuously store, process and transfer data.

Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is typically a metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a data centre. Since data centres are energy intensive it is important to have lower PUE. The average PUE of the data centres in India ranges between 1.5-1.8 as compared with an average of 1.2-1.3 in Europe and 1.62 for Japanese data centres.

Power usage effectiveness

India’s data centres need to focus on improving the PUE to meet the global benchmark. Further, reliable electrical systems and efficient cooling systems could increase the demand for materials like copper. Copper’s exceptional thermal and electrical conductivity makes it essential to these processes. Moreover, copper’s conductivity lowers energy losses in cooling and power distribution systems which are essential for the dependability and efficiency of data centres. Data centres in developed countries continue to invest in copper-intensive infrastructure, focusing on reliability. On average, data centres in the US, Europe and China use 36-40 tonnes of copper per megawatt. On the other hand, the average in India is approximately 18 tonnes per megawatt, indicating further scope to improve on reliability and energy efficiency as per global benchmark.

With its proven reliability and cost-effectiveness, copper will remain an essential component for maximising data centre performance, guaranteeing data security, and for facilitating further technological developments.

The writer is Managing Director, International Copper Association India

Published on December 22, 2024