According to a report by Cushman & Wakefield, India’s data centre capacity stood at 977 MW across the top seven cities. Meanwhile, India’s current under-construction capacity addition stands at 1.03 GW for 2024-2028, with an additional 1.29 GW being planned, taking the total projected capacity to 3.29 GW by 2028.
The report noted that that despite a strong pipeline projection of 3.29 GW of Colocation (Colo) data centre capacity by 2028, India will require an additional data centre capacity of 1.7-3.6 GW beyond this planned development to meet future demands.
The report highlighted that India’s potential to become a global data centre hub, owing to the low cost of construction, land, and power compared to other countries. The country already has a well-established IT and digitally enabled services ecosystem, which further supports this potential.
As per the report, the median cost of constructing a data centre in India is estimated at $6.8 million per MW of capacity. This is significantly lower than in most Asia-Pacific (APAC) nations, such as Australia ($9.17 million), Japan ($12.73 million), Singapore ($11.23 million), and China ($6.84 million).
It stated that more than 90 per cent of the current and planned data centre supply is concentrated in key markets, including Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi NCR, and Hyderabad. Hyderabad is emerging as a new data centre hub in India. Small data centres are also being established in tier-2 cities.
Further, it noted that the increasing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) will further augment the overall demand for data centres in India.
Furthermore, it added that India is among the few nations aiming to double its power generation capacity to 820 GW by 2030. This increase will benefit power-consuming industries like data centres. The availability of ample power supply is crucial for the data centre industry, which is sensitive to the quality of power supply.
Moreover, out of the 820 GW expected by 2030, a dominant 61 per cent is likely to come from renewable sources, emphasising India’s high focus on sustainability. The report further added that the demand for capital will rise, and Indian banks are becoming more open to providing debt for data centre transactions. This marks the beginning of Indian financial institutions recognising the importance of this asset class.
