CHENNAI: Web Werks, one of India’s leading data centres, will be setting up a 20MW data centre in Ambattur at a cost of around Rs 750 crore and it will generate direct employment to 100 people, according to founder and chief executive officer of Web Werks Nikhil Rathi.
In an interview to Express on Wednesday, Rathi said that the investment will increase depending upon how the demand picks up for the data centre. “Chennai is a landing station and it already has three to four cable landing centres or where underwater cable makes landfall and new cables are also coming in. Our investments could go up in the city,” said Rathi.
He said Chennai is the digital hub for the South and can play a major role along with Mumbai. “The ecosystem requires submarine cables, local consumption, internet traffic, which is needed for a data centre to proliferate. Data centres require ample land and ample power and Tamil Nadu and Chennai meet the requirement. And that is why everyone is making a beeline in Chennai,” says Rathi.
On why he chose Ambattur over Siruseri, Rathi says that it is a highland and is not prone to floods and Ambattur has not been that affected during the last two to three floods the city has seen. “The data centre will be located in the industrial area of Ambattur where land parcels are available and we are looking at those. It is also not that far from Santhome and away from the IT corridor which is usually crowded. We would also like to take advantage of fibre and other areas,” says Rathi.
Interestingly, Ambattur already has ST Telemedia Global Data Centres India and NTT Netmagic data centre with three more expected to come soon. These include expansion by NTT Netmagic, a data centre by Princeton Digital and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres India. On competition, he says data centres take time. “Currently, we are seeing a land rush. Once land is acquired then you have to get permission. It will take 24 to 36 months to build a data centre. It all depends on the site, whether it is suitable or not. The announcement are made but it will take three years for the data centre to function,” he says.
He said the data centre will be catering to hyperscaler or scalable cloud computing systems.