BENGALURU: With digitalisation and rapid adoption of cloud, combined with data localisation norms and storage of data within India, the demand for data centres in the country to massively scale up in the coming years, according to Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group.
“Every organisation requires IT capacity and they need a place to put their servers - either in-house, cloud or data centres. Going ahead, we see the size of data centres to massively increase and we expect a lot of significance to be based on safety and sustainability,” said Vipin Shirsat, General Manager, Princeton Digital Group. He added that as MNCS are growing, there is a need to put more capacity near the users and save the network cost and fulfil certain regulatory norms.
Singapore-headquartered Princeton Digital Group(PDG) launched its data centre (MU1) last week in Navi Mumbai. With an investment of $150 million, the new data centre provides 24 MW of IT capacity and the company will invest another $150 million to provide additional 24 MW of capacity that will be operational by 2024. Shirsat said the data centre has the capacity to scale up to 100 MW in future.
PDG, which has presence in five countries with a portfolio of 20 data centres and 600 MW capacity, has plans to further expand in Mumbai and other cities such as Chennai, Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad with similar size and capacity.
According to Crisil’s recent report, data centre capacity in India will double to 1,800 MW by fiscal 2025. The report says Mumbai, which accounts for nearly half of the existing capacity, is expected to add 300 MW. The data centre sector is emerging in India on the back of digital transformation and more data is being processed and consumed at present. The sector also faces many challenges and vulnerabilities.
Talking about it, Shirsat said that there are infrastructure and regulatory challenges.
“There is a limitation to the size of the centre that we can put up,” he said, adding certain approvals take longer time. He also added since the industry has suddenly started to grow, getting talent is also becoming difficult. “We have taken initiatives like training and grooming young engineering talent,” he added.
The company in February this year closed an equity investment from Mubadala Investment Company as a lead investor for $350 million. Both existing shareholders in PDG, Warburg Pincus and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board also invested in that round.
‘Data centre capacity to double to 1,800 MW by 2025’
According to Crisil’s recent report, data centre capacity in India will double to 1,800 MW by fiscal 2025. The report says Mumbai, which accounts for nearly half of the existing capacity, is expected to add 300 MW