The growing digitalisation backed by a strong government policy impetus has led to a surge of the number of data centres (DCs) and is expected to grow twofold by 2024 in the country, according to a report.

The DC investments in India are expected to surpass $20 billion by 2025, the report by CBRE South Asia said on Tuesday.

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The report — Data Centres in India: Powering Up Real Estate in a ‘Data-High’ Era — also said over-the-top (OTT), online gaming, increased smartphone usage, e-commerce, online schooling by EdTech platforms, location-agnostic work, along with advanced technologies including machine learning, fifth-generation mobile (5G), blockchain and artificial intelligence, has led to a multifold jump in data transmission and need for high spec (high specification) servers.

According to our latest report, in the first half of 2022, the DC stock in India exceeded 9 million sq. ft. with a 600+ megawatt (mw) capacity in India. It is expected that the DC capacity will almost double by 2024, with more than 400 mw currently under construction across cities in India. Mumbai is expected to lead the supply addition, followed by Bengaluru, Chennai, and Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR).

Data centres is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.

Pan-India DC stock growth

In terms of pan-India DC stock, Mumbai led the Indian cities, accounting as much as 48% share, followed by Bengaluru at 18%. Chennai is at 9% and is gradually becoming one of the fastest growing DC markets in India. Together, these three cities accounted for nearly 75% of India’s DC footprint. In addition, Delhi-NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata made up the remaining 25% of the DC market in India.

According to the report, hyperscale DCs majorly dominated investments during 2018-2021 with a share of 77% – a similar trend was recorded in the first half of 2022. Moreover, investments in hyperscale DCs were majorly spread across the top states, with West Bengal leading with a share of 22%, followed by Uttar Pradesh (19%), Telangana (16%), and Tamil Nadu (8%).

Hyperscale data centres are advanced buildings that provide the space, power, cooling and network infrastructure required to support the mass-scale requirements of data and cloud computing.

Some key investments of colocation and hyper scale DCs in 2022

• NTT invested $200 million in Maharashtra
• Equinix invested $86 million in Maharashtra
• BAM Digital invested $30 million in Tamil Nadu

The report stated that considering DCs’ high energy consumption, environment, and social, and governance (ESG) adoption has become a necessity. Although DCs have historically had a high carbon footprint, they offer a valuable path towards a greener, more sustainable world.

CBRE South Asia is India’s leading real estate consulting firm. CBRE Group Inc, a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 revenue).