CapitaLand India Trust To Invest $155M in 36MW Hyderabad Data Centre  

An India-focused property trust managed by Singapore’s CapitaLand Group is committing around INR 12 billion ($155 million) to build a 36 megawatt data centre in Hyderabad, as it ramps up its digital infrastructure footprint in Asia’s third largest economy.

SGX-listed CapitaLand India Trust Management on Tuesday announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Telangana state, where Hyderabad is located, to develop a 250,000 square foot (23,225 square metre) data centre at the trust’s International Tech Park Hyderabad in suburban Madhapur.

“Our latest Hyderabad project will incorporate state-of-the-art technology and the project reinforces our commitment to becoming a strategic data centre operator in India,” said Surajit Chatterjee, managing director for India data centres at CapitaLand Investment.

The investment marks CapitaLand India Trust’s second data centre development project and the latest show of confidence by international investors in a digital infrastructure market that is projected to double in size by 2025.

126MW Portfolio on the Way

The trust will invest INR 12 billion in the facility over the next three to five years with the goal of serving hyperscale clients and other large enterprises in the region. The project is being developed within CapitaLand India Trust’s 20-acre (9.1 hectare) International Tech Park Hyderabad, which is already home to five office buildings.

 

The project will bring the trust its first data centre project in southern India after the manager had in July last year acquired a greenfield site in the Greater Mumbai area with plans to invest INR 12 billion in a facility there. DC Navi Mumbai 1 is designed to provide 90 megawatts from a 575,000 square foot campus in Airoli, Navi Mumbai which will be able to house 8,500 racks when completed.

This latest project brings CapitaLand’s team into familiar territory in the metro area of around 10 million people.

“CLINT owns and manages three business parks in Hyderabad – ITPH, CyberPearl and aVance – aggregating to 3.8 million square feet and catering to close to 70 global organisations and over 30,000 professionals,” said Sanjeev Dasgupta chief executive of the trust’s manager.

According to Dasgupta, the trust has been operating in the state of Telangana for nearly two decades and will continue to look for ways to add more “new economy assets” to its portfolio.

“Over the last few years, CapitaLand Group has rapidly built strong competencies in data centre design, development and operations, with 25 data centres across Asia and Europe that will offer more than 500 MW of power on a completed basis,” Chatterjee added.

India Attracts $10B Investments

CapitaLand India Trust is making its latest data centre investment after India’s digital infrastructure sector notched compound annual growth of 21 percent rate from 2012 through 2022 on the back of rising smartphone ownership, e-commerce penetration and increasing adoption of cloud services, according to a report published this month by Colliers

“India is getting positioned as a hub for data centers across APAC. With the challenge of expansion in other developed markets like Singapore, India is taking a steady growth linked expansion, connected directly with the end user consumption,” said Rao Srinivasa, managing director for data center project management at Colliers India.

Colliers noted that data centre investments in the country surged to $10 billion since 2020, with major infrastructure, real estate developers and private equity funds leading the wave.

Evidence of the growing global significance of India’s data centre market popped up last month when Singapore-based Digital Edge announced plans to set up a presence in the country as part of a plan to grow its APAC portfolio to 500 megawatts.

In August, local media reported that Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management had purchased a data centre site in Navi Mumbai for $81 million, after the investment manager had last year announced a joint venture with Digital Realty to develop server facilities in the country.

US giant Equinix has also been ramping up its operations in India, including spending a reported $86 million in June to acquire a four-acre land parcel in Mumbai which will be home to its third data centre in the city.