India’s data centre industry capacity to double by 2023

Data capacity is measured in megawatt and gigawatt and indicate how much data the network of servers is capable of consuming. The rollout of 5G services by telecom companies is likely to drive exponential growth in data consumption. India’s data centre industry is expected to double in capacity by 2023, driven by digitalisation and rising cloud adoption, according to property consultant JLL. The demand for data centres has been growing due to increasing digital usage emerging from distributed workforce, growing data security concerns and business disruptions.

Additionally, banking and financial services are adopting hybrid options to meet digital growth. Homegrown video and gaming platforms in the midst of robust user growth are also fuelling the data centre industry demand. Leading players into data centre business are also adopting strategic alliances by investing in new submarine cables to meet growing demand. Recently, tech giants Google and Facebook announced their partnership to build a 12,000 km-long undersea cable.

Data centres are a large network of computer servers that are used by organisations across various industries to store, process and distribute large amounts of data. The industry consumed nearly 500 MW of data in the first half of 2021 in the country and is expected to exceed 1 GW in the next two years. Further, the rollout of 5G services by telecom companies is likely to drive exponential growth in data consumption, the report noted.

Mumbai, which currently accounts for 45% of the total capacity, is expected to further add 276 MW between now and 2023, according to the report. “Various states have also been providing incentives for the data centre industry as they want to join the next leg of technological change, '' says JLL report. JLL also noted that data centre operators are adopting large land acquisition strategies to fulfil the long-term requirements of major cloud players that have massive computing requirements.