AI boom to drive 45-50 million sq ft surge in Indian data centre space by 2030: Deloitte

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In its journey to become the global data centre hub, India could require a capacity of 45-50 million sq ft of real and 40–45 Terawatt Hours (TWH) incremental power by 2030 to capture the growing demand driven by the AI surge, a Deloitte report said.

The real estate demand will see a significant increase from the existing 13 million square feet in 2023.

The report further identified six key pillars for India to reach its full potential in building a leading, AI-ready ecosystem. These pillars are real estate, power and utilities infrastructure, connectivity and network infrastructure, compute infrastructure, talent and policy framework.

"For India to accelerate its AI capabilities and realise its potential, it is necessary to introduce enabling policies to support the sector. India must develop its AI-ready infrastructure to meet this rising demand for data analytics and processing. Moreover, strengthening research and development (R&D), improving talent pipelines, securing vernacular datasets and supportive policies will further accelerate the AI-driven growth,” said S. Anjani Kumar, Partner, Deloitte India.

Neha Aggarwal, Partner, Deloitte India added, “India's strategic location allows it to serve domestic and global markets effectively, positioning it as a critical node in the global data centre ecosystem. However, India’s vision to become a global AI hub demands a relook at the traditional data centre infrastructure.”

“A greater focus on building high-performance compute infrastructure, scalable power and cooling systems and efficient networking infrastructure, with a reconsideration of policy framework, can make India a hotspot for AI-powered data centre development in the coming years,” Aggarwal said.

The report noted how rising interest in colocation models and government initiatives offering incentives under various state government data centre policies is boosting growth. From a policy perspective, Deloitte suggested that introducing a separate category for data centres in the National Building Code and recognising them under the Essential Services Maintenance Act could further incentivise specialised infrastructure development.

For Compute infrastructure to stay competitive, the report suggested India to urgently boost Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) supply, promote GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and attract foreign investment to build Exaflop-scale capacity with high-performance GPUs.