Data Centre stock in India to double by 2024; USD 20 billion investments estimated by 2025

Hyperscale DCs dominate majority of the investments during 2018-21

National – September 27, 2022 – CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd, India’s leading real estate consulting firm, has announced the findings of its latest report, “Data Centres in India: Powering Up Real Estate in a ‘Data-High’ Era”. According to the report, Data Centre (DC) investments in India are expected to surpass USD 20 billion by 2025. The growing digitalization, coupled with a strong government policy impetus, has led to a surge in demand for DCs in India. In addition, OTT, online gaming, increased smartphone usage, e-commerce, online schooling by EdTech platforms, location-agnostic work, along with advanced technologies including machine learning, 5G, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, has led to a multi-fold jump in data transmission and need for high spec servers.

Cumulative DC investment in India (2018 – 2025E) *According to our latest report, in H1 2022, the DC stock in India exceeded 9 million sq. ft. with a 600+ MW capacity in India. It is expected that the DC capacity will almost double by 2024, with more than 400 MW currently under construction across cities in India. Mumbai is expected to lead the supply addition, followed by Bangalore, Chennai, and Delhi-NCR.

Mumbai led in terms of pan-India DC stock, accounting for a share of about 48%, followed by Bangalore at about 18%, along with Chennai (9%), which is now gradually becoming one of the fastest growing DC markets in India. Together, these three cities accounted for nearly 75% of India’s DC footprint. In addition, Delhi-NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata accounted for the remaining 25% of the DC market in India.

According to the report, hyperscale DCs majorly dominated investments during 2018-2021 with a share of about 77% – a similar trend was recorded in H1 2022. Moreover, investments in hyperscale DCs were majorly spread across the top states, with West Bengal leading with a share of 22%, followed by Uttar Pradesh (19%), Telangana (16%), and Tamil Nadu (8%). On the other hand, more than half of investments announced in colocation DCs were across India, while the remaining half was split between the key states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana.