The government has accorded infrastructure status to data centres with more than a 5-megawatt (MW) capacity of IT load. The move aims to enable data centre companies to get easier access to institutional credit at lower rates and attract foreign investments.
According to a recent notification, data centre is included in the Harmonized Master List of Infrastructure sub-sectors by insertion of a new item in the category of communication. Data centres that are housed in a dedicated/centralised building for storage and processing of digital data applications with a minimum capacity of 5 MW of IT load will be considered eligible for infrastructure status. The capacity of data centres is measured in terms of the power they consume which reflects on the scale of the server they are hosting in their facilities.
