CHENNAI: Larsen & Toubro, leading Indian multinational conglomerate, would be setting up 90MW data centres and associated units in a phased manner in Kancheepuram over the next five years.
L&T signed an MoU with the State government to set up the data centres which would generate 1,100 jobs. This includes 500 direct and 600 indirect jobs.
Chennai is emerging as a data centre hub with Guidance (TN government agency) already signing MoUs with nine companies for data centres with a total proposed investment of `16,927 crore and employment potential of over 9,000 jobs. In July, Singapore-based CapitaLand and WebWerks signed MoUs worth `1,900 crore with the State government for setting up two data centres in Ambattur.
After Singapore put a temporary pause on data centres last year, global firms are targeting Tamil Nadu as it has excellent Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) network and availability of reliable and large bandwidth. With six submarine cables, Chennai has one of the largest bandwidths among Indian cities (14.8 Tbps). According to the State’s FinTech policy, which was unveiled on Tuesday, Tamil Nadu is focusing on increasing fiber capacity and more submarine cable landings to improve international connectivity. It has at least three more submarine cable projects in the pipeline.
The submarine cable linking Chennai with Singapore has significantly increased the existing bandwidth capacity of India. It is the second fastest-growing communications route in the world. South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4), which has a landing point in Chennai, is an optical fiber submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, and France.
Sudhir L Mahajan, vice-president and head, Data Center Business, L&T, signed the MoU with Pooja Kulkarni, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Guidance, in the presence of Chief Minister M K Stalin and other officials from L&T. As per the MoU, the State will provide uninterrupted power supply and other infrastructure support to the project that will bring tangible economic and social benefits to the people of Tamil Nadu.
Comprehensive solution
The Hyperscale Data Centres to be established at Kancheepuram will provide comprehensive solutions and end-to-end data centre services, with multi-cloud management and cyber security services, besides digital transformation and application integration services, L&T said