HYDERABAD: Hyderabad has emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing data centre markets, ranking 27th globally in operational capacity and 19th in future development pipeline, according to the Knight Frank Global Data Centre Atlas 2026.
The report, which assessed 36 leading data centre markets across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, paints Hyderabad as a city in the midst of a major buildout. It currently has 151 MW of operational IT capacity, backed by a development pipeline exceeding 2.2 GW, reflecting investor confidence and growth prospects.
That momentum is expected to gather pace over the next few years. Hyderabad’s operational capacity is projected to reach nearly 380 MW by 2027, while committed and early-stage projects total about 1.9 GW, second only to Mumbai in India. Mumbai, with 774 MW of operational capacity, ranks 15th globally and 11th in future development pipeline with 4.9 GW.
The next phase of data centre boom is taking shape on the city’s outskirts. CtrlS is developing a 612 MW data centre park at Chandanvelly Industrial Park, with 250 MW of power already secured for the first phase.
NTT Data, Neysa Networks and the state government are developing a 400 MW AI-focused cluster capable of supporting up to 25,000 GPUs. Nxtra by Airtel is also building its largest Hyderabad facility, a 200 MW campus spread across 40 acres.
Creating durable business value with AI requires trusted infra: Microsoft
The Hyderabad region comprises three availability zones designed to support mission-critical workloads while meeting India’s regulatory and seismic requirements. Eligible cloud services and workloads are now available from the new region, with additional services to be rolled out over time.
The expansion comes as Microsoft’s Azure cloud business has recorded strong double-digit growth in India over the past two years, driven by rising demand as enterprises move from AI pilot projects to production-scale deployments.
“Whether it is a Frontier Firm already running AI at scale or an enterprise taking its first steps, the question we hear most often is: how do we move faster from experimenting with AI to creating durable business value with AI?” said Puneet Chandok, president, Microsoft India and South Asia.
“That requires trusted infrastructure close to where data lives, teams work and decisions are made,” he said.
The Hyderabad facility is part of Microsoft’s broader investment in India’s cloud and AI infrastructure. The company had earlier announced investments of $3 billion in January 2025 and $17.5 billion in December 2025.
Microsoft also said more than 90% of NIFTY 100 companies use Microsoft 365 Copilot, while Infosys, TCS, Wipro and LTIMindtree have together signed up for more than 400,000 Copilot seats. Globally, Microsoft 365 Copilot has crossed 30 million paid seats.