India's data centre capacity hits 1,900 MW as AI workloads demand new infrastructure approach

At CtrlS, AI-readiness is A Foundational Design Principle Rather Than An Upgrade Path

This expansion is further strengthened by our recent strategic partnership with CPP Investments, which provides up to INR 7,000 crore (C$1 billion) in long-term capital to accelerate hyperscale campus development across India. As India's digital economy accelerates with AI, hyperscale cloud adoption, and data localization, the demand for next-generation datacenter infrastructure is rising at an unprecedented pace. In this exclusive conversation with Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal, Anil Nama, CIO, CtrlS Datacenters, shares insights into the company's expansion roadmap, AI-first datacenter design philosophy, power and sustainability challenges, and how CtrlS is building resilient, energy-efficient infrastructure to support India's rapidly growing digital and AI ecosystem. Rajeev: What is your current capacity and expansion roadmap till 2030? Anil: CtrlS currently operates 19 facilities across nine markets in India, totalling 370MW of installed IT capacity, spanning Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Noida, Patna, Lucknow and Ahmedabad. We are scaling capacity strategically, supported by a balanced expansion strategy that combines large AI-ready hyperscale campuses along with a planned network of 20+ edge datacenters across India. Our roadmap is anchored by large AI-ready hyperscale campuses in Mumbai and Hyderabad. This expansion is further strengthened by our recent strategic partnership with CPP Investments, which provides up to INR 7,000 crore (C$1 billion) in long-term capital to accelerate hyperscale campus development across India. This long-term capital and early investments in land, power, and investment in renewables enable us to deliver our roadmap in a scalable, sustainable way. Rajeev: How are you designing AI-first data centers vs traditional ones? Anil: AI workloads run hotter and denser than traditional enterprise racks, so we engineer for that from day one rather than retrofitting later. At CtrlS, AI-readiness is a foundational design principle rather than an upgrade path. Our AI-ready campuses are built around direct liquid and immersion cooling, support rack densities of up to 250kW per rack, and industry-low PUE with 80% liquid cooling at our Mumbai datacenter park, compared with the 5-10kW racks and higher PUE typical of legacy colocation facilities. Traditional design prioritizes uptime and density at modest power draw, while AI-first design prioritizes extreme power density, thermal efficiency, high-speed interconnectivity, and speed-to-power from the outset. This shift mirrors a broader industry trend, where rack densities once considered high-end are now routinely exceeded by GPU training and inference clusters, making AI-readiness a core design philosophy rather than an add-on feature. Rajeev: What are your biggest challenges: power, land, or funding? Anil: Our recent CPP Investments partnership and continued investor confidence reflect the sector's strong long-term fundamentals. As AI workloads continue to increase, rack densities, campus-scale power requirements, and time-to-power have overtaken land as the critical bottleneck, since grid capacity at 100 MW+ campus scale is scarce, and securing high-voltage substations, transmission connectivity, and statutory approvals requires significant advance planning. We have proactively addressed this by securing land and power well ahead of construction across our pipeline and by building in-house design and execution capabilities, which let us deliver 30-50% faster than the industry average. Land acquisition, zoning, and grid connectivity approvals remain the areas where continued policy support, faster utility coordination, and faster single-window clearances would unlock the next leg of growth for the whole industry. Rajeev: How are you balancing growth with sustainability goals? Anil: Sustainability is not a side initiative for us; it is embedded in how we build. Our GreenVolt initiative is a cornerstone of this strategy, supporting our broader ambition of scaling renewable energy capacity to 1 GW by 2030. We have further strengthened this roadmap through our partnership with NTPC Green Energy Limited to develop large-scale renewable energy capacity for future datacenter operations. We have also pioneered India's first, and the world's first Rated-4, solar façade datacenter, with newer facilities continuing to integrate solar façades and sustainable design principles from the outset. Our facilities use liquid and immersion cooling, AI-driven energy optimisation, which cuts cooling energy needs by up to 95% and lowers PUE to as low as 1.35. As AI drives higher compute densities and energy demand, designing for efficiency and renewable power from the start has become a business imperative. We have also earned LEED Platinum certifications and multiple national awards for green datacenter design and zero-waste operations across our facilities, reflecting a long-term commitment that is built into our capital planning rather than a compliance exercise layered as an afterthought. Together, these engineering choices and partnerships position CtrlS as a leader in sustainable digital infrastructure, advancing India's clean energy future. Rajeev: Are we heading towards overcapacity, or is demand still under-served? Anil: Demand remains structurally underserved in India, even as headlines globally debate an AI infrastructure bubble. India's datacenter capacity is expected to grow from roughly 1.4GW to 9GW by 2030, driven by hyperscale expansion, data localization mandates, and AI-led demand that operators describe as accelerating rather than plateauing. Unlike some mature markets where capacity is being built ahead of demand, India's growth continues to be underpinned by a strong pipeline of contracted hyperscale, BFSI, enterprise, and increasingly AI workloads. This long-term demand visibility is also reflected in continued investor confidence, including our recent strategic partnership with CPP Investments to accelerate hyperscale development in India. From our perspective, the bigger challenge is not demand itself but aligning the growth of power infrastructure, land readiness, and transmission networks scale at the same pace. The opportunity is significant, provided the supporting infrastructure ecosystem continues to evolve alongside demand.

The Rise of an Infrastructure Powerhouse: Unlocking India's Data Centre Opportunity

The global digital economy is expanding at an unprecedented velocity, reshaped by explosive demand from cloud computing, high-definition streaming, and artificial intelligence (AI). At the heart of this global transition lies India -- a nation that currently produces roughly one-fifth of global data traffic, yet hosts only 2 to 3 per cent of global data centre capacity. This massive gap represents one of the largest infrastructure investment opportunities of the decade. According to a landmark report by KPMG, India's data centre market is at a critical inflection point where demand visibility, massive capital inflows, and disruptive technological shifts are aligning simultaneously. The nation is rapidly shifting from incremental growth to large-scale, hyper-dense capacity creation, positioning itself as a key strategic node in regional and global digital architecture. An Accelerated Journey: The Road to 1,900 MW and Beyond India's data centre journey has progressed through distinct, successive phases of demand-led growth. Following the modest progress of the dot-com correction phase, the market was initially dominated by colocation facilities catering to local enterprises, financial institutions, and domestic telecom operators. However, the current growth cycle is vastly different, powered directly by hyperscale cloud providers, global content platforms, and AI-first companies. The country's installed data centre capacity has more than tripled since FY19, reaching an impressive 1,900 MW mark in FY26. Six Converging Forces Shaping Demand The structural shift driving this boom is underpinned by six core macroeconomic and technology developments: * Cloud Migration: India's cloud market is forecast to reach ~USD70 billion by 2032, expanding at a CAGR of over 20 per cent, making it one of the fastest-growing cloud ecosystems globally. * Digital India Scale: With over 950 million internet users and 660 million smartphone users, India already generates 20 per cent of all global internet traffic. * AI and GPU Workloads: High-performance computing (HPC) is fundamentally altering data centre AI workloads are projected to account for 55 per cent of total DC capacity by FY30, requiring advanced cooling solutions and unprecedented rack densities. * Data Localisation: Strict compliance frameworks, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023 and RBI mandates, require secure domestic hosting, expected to contribute 1,800-2,000 MW of incremental demand by 2027. * BFSI Compliance: Processing over 630 million UPI transactions per day requires robust, on-shore infrastructure with integrated AI-led fraud detection and compliance * 5G & Edge Computing: Over 518,000 5G towers across nearly all districts are driving the need for latency-heavy apps, boosting edge data centre demand. Structural Cost and Infrastructure Advantages In addition to explosive domestic demand, India offers unique structural supply-side advantages. Crucially, construction costs are significantly lower than competing regional hubs. For example, Mumbai ranks as the world's second most cost-effective location for data centre construction, with costs nearly half of those found in Singapore or Tokyo. Power infrastructure is also a critical competitive differentiator. India surpassed 500 GW of total installed power capacity, with over 50 per cent derived from renewable sources -- meeting its COP26 Panchamrit goals well ahead of the 2030 target. This provides hyperscalers with a clear pathway to satisfy stringent net-zero corporate mandates. The Downstream Multiplier: A $90 Billion Opportunity The scale of capital flowing into the sector extends far beyond the data centre facilities themselves. KPMG estimates that the cumulative construction-related and infrastructure value chain opportunity will scale to an astonishing USD30 billion by FY30, and reach USD90 billion by FY35. This massive downstream spend spans across architectural design, complex power infrastructure (both inside and outside the DC), advanced cooling systems, and specialized project management. Supported by proactive government policy -- including the designation of "Infrastructure Status" to data centres and the robust USD1.2 billion IndiaAI Mission -- the nation is perfectly positioned to complete its transition from an emerging market into a dominant, self-sustaining global data centre powerhouse.