India Data Centre Market to Double Capacity by 2025

India’s data centre stock is expected to double over the next three years to reach as much as 20 million square feet (1.85 million square metres) and 1500 megawatts, driven by a regional e-commerce boom and increasing adoption of smart devices and cloud services, according to a recent report by Colliers.

Since 2020, global data centre operators, developers and investment funds have poured a combined $10 billion into Indian server facility projects, said the property firm, noting that rising data consumption and favourable government policies have spurred activity in the sector in the last two to three years.

“India is getting positioned as a hub for data centres across APAC,” said Rao Srinivasa, managing director for data centres with the project management team at Colliers India. “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 Srinivasa.

So far this year, India’s data centre market – which currently has around 770 megawatts of capacity – has continued to attract operators, with Singapore’s Digital Edge last month having named Asia’s third-largest economy as one of its key targets as it seeks to expand its portfolio in the region.

Hyperscalers Take a Larger Bite

With data centres in India now occupying 10.3 million square feet of space, Colliers predicts that footprint will double by 2025, with hyperscale customers such as cloud service providers, e-commerce platforms and online content networks driving much of the demand.

“(India’s) data centre industry has witnessed robust growth between 2012-22 growing at 21 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), led by increased adoption of smartphones, e-commerce and cloud services,” said Vimal Nadar, senior director of research at Colliers India.

Currently, large data centres with over 50 megawatts of individual capacity constitute just 24 percent of the country’s total data centre supply. In the next three years, however, more than 80 percent of upcoming supply will comprise large data centre facilities, Colliers, said with Srinivasa predicting that total capacity would surpass 1500 MW by 2025.

“Hyperscalers are also rapidly gaining ground and ramping up their investments in India as they plan to set up multiple data centres across key cities. Realizing the market potential and abundance of opportunities in India, investments in data centres are likely to remain popular amongst investors.” Nadar said.

Aside from the country’s growing Internet user base, burgeoning consumption of mobile data and expanding cloud market, Colliers attributed the ascension of India’s data centre market to its e-commerce sector, which is expected to reach $350 billion in value by 2030, more than four times the $74.8 billion predicted for 2022, according to data from India Brand Equity Foundation.

Combined with supporting policies such as stamp and electricity duty exemption, as well as subsidised power and fuel prices, investments in the sector are expected to continue their crescendo.

Investor Invasion

Colliers’ predictions for India’s data centre sector coincide with a wave of investments in the sector over the past year by global fund giants.

Last week, Warburg Pincus-backed data centre operator Princeton Digital Group (PDG) launched a 48MW server facility in Mumbai, with that milestone coming just one day after Singapore-listed CapitaLand India Trust announced a deal to build a 36MW project in Hyderabad.

In November Blackstone launched its first wholly owned data centre platform in Asia, Lumina CloudInfra, led by two large pipeline projects in India.

In July, Gaw Capital hired former Macquarie Asset Management executive Nitin Gupta to spearhead its entry into the India data centre market, according to its statement at the time.

US giant Equinix in June announced plans to build its third Mumbai data centre at an initial investment of more than $86 million.