Hyderabad has second highest planned data centre capacity

Chennai:Over and above the planned data centre capacity till 2028, India will need additional capacity of up to 3.6 GW. Hyderabad has been fast emerging as a preferred destination with second highest planned capacity.

As per the findings of Cushman and Wakefield, an additional 1.7-3.6 GW data centre capacity is needed, over and above the planned development of 2.32 GW colocation capacity, taking the potential of possible data centre capacity to over 5 GW.

More than 90 per cent of this supply concentrated in key markets including Mumbai,

Chennai, Delhi NCR and Hyderabad. Hyderabad is expected to join the current top markets of Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi-NCR due to several under-construction and planned developments by players such as CapitaLand, CtrlS, Sify, and Adaniconnex. Many more facilities are in the planning stages, with land sites already acquired.

Hyderabad has 261 MW of planned data centre capacity after Mumbai with 916 MW. The second largest market, Chennai has a planned capacity of 152 MW.

India’s current under-construction colocation 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. This exponential growth is propelled by a confluence of factors, including a significant increase in data consumption fuelled by rising digital penetration and adoption of data-intensive technologies.

Increase in investment is needed for the rising demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is expected to further augment overall demand of DCs in India.

At over 19GB, Indians have been the highest consumers of data per month among comparable nations. Despite this, India today lags in internet and smartphone penetration. India’s colocation data centre capacity stood at 977 MW across the top 7 cities in 2023. Out of this, around 258 MW was built in 2023, witnessing a 105 per cent growth.