Blackstone boss Steven Schwarzman will have India data centres he can reach out and touch (Getty Images)
Blackstone’s Lumina CloudInfra has begun construction of its first hyperscale data centre campus in India, with the project expected to exceed 60 megawatts of critical IT load.
Lumina said Wednesday that it expected the first phase of the maiden development in Navi Mumbai’s Airoli area to be completed by 2025.
The platform led by former Microsoft cloud executive Anil Reddy is also on track to start work on a second site at Mahape, Navi Mumbai, according to a company statement.
“The groundbreaking of our first data centre is an important milestone for Lumina and India’s digital journey,” Reddy said. “The Lumina platform builds on the team’s experiences combined with the success of Blackstone’s strong track record in data infrastructure and shares the commitment of bringing innovative opportunities to investors and consumers around the world including in India.”
First Wholly Owned Platform
Blackstone launched Lumina last November as the Manhattan-based firm’s first wholly owned data centre platform in Asia. According to Lumina’s bare-bones website, the platform has a planned capacity of 600MW across Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Noida.
Anil Reddy, global CEO and co-founder of Lumina CloudInfra
Lumina global CEO Reddy spent more than a decade at Microsoft in a series of roles, including chief strategy officer for India and director of the Azure cloud platform’s expansion into India and China. In his final post, he helped grow the tech giant’s cloud infrastructure from 400MW of supply to 1.6 gigawatts globally.
Working with Reddy is Sujeet Deshpande as Lumina India CEO. Deshpande joined the venture from UK-based Colt Data Centre Services, where he served as president and country head of India for more than three years.
“There’s tremendous demand for data centres in India, which is a hub for many leading technology and IT service companies,” Deshpande said in Wednesday’s announcement. “We are proud to be one of the pioneers in bringing an innovative mission-critical data infrastructure to India and supporting the country’s digital transformation.”
Supply Surge
Colliers reported last December that India’s data centre stock was forecast to double by 2025 to reach as much as 20 million square feet (1.85 million square metres) and 1,500MW, driven by a regional e-commerce boom and increasing adoption of smart devices and cloud services.
That same month, Singapore-listed CapitaLand India Trust announced $385 million in investment towards building a 36MW data centre in Hyderabad and a 55W facility in Chennai, while regional developer Princeton Digital Group launched its 48MW flagship Indian facility in Mumbai.
In January of this year, BAM Digital Realty broke ground on its first facility in India. The first building of the joint venture between Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Realty will offer 20MW of capacity at Chennai’s Ambattur Industrial Estate and provide 100MW at full build-out.
In February, Singapore-based Digital Edge entered the Indian data centre market by setting up a JV with AGP Sustainable Real Assets and a state-backed investor to build a portfolio of hyperscale facilities including a $2 billion facility in Mumbai.
Leave a Reply