Powered by the transition to work-from-home arrangements during the COVID-19 lockdown, the country’s data centre industry became the backbone of the digital economy and ensured a level of business continuity. In such a scenario, Mumbai is expected to see the highest capacity addition as it continues to be the preferred choice for large cloud players because of its infrastructure advantage, a new report has said.
The city accounts for 62 percent of India’s total cloud capacity, followed by Pune and Chennai. Additionally, due to its infrastructural benefits, it continues to command a premium for enterprise demand, followed by Hyderabad and Chennai. Further, the city is expected to witness the highest capacity addition of around 360 MW during 2020-2025, followed by Chennai with a capacity addition of 134 MW, the report said.
India’s data centre capacity is expected to grow from 375 MW in H1 2020 to 1,078 MW by 2025, presenting a 4.9 billion dollars investment opportunity, it said.
According to JLL’s H1 2020 ‘(re) Imagine Data Centres Running India’s Digital Economy’ report, the impact of data protection laws, increased shift from captive to colocation (colo) data cantres and implementation of new technologies like 5G, edge computing and the internet of things (IoT) will drive sustained investor demand for this asset class over the next five years.
“India’s data centre market will outperform over the next five years, supported by a combination of growing digital economy, increased investor interest and stable long-term returns. Growth in the sector will be further powered by colocation sites which, via, lower upfront costs, heightened data security, uninterrupted services and scalability will, further, influence investors to reimagine the potential of India’s data centre space,” said Karan Singh Sodi, Regional Managing Director – Mumbai, JLL India.
India’s data centre industry has provided immense boost to the digital economy during H1 2020. Daily data consumption rose from an average of 270 petabytes (PB) during pre-lockdown period to an average of 308 PB post lockdown period, registering a 14 percent rise.
There was a 12 percent rise in data consumption in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, while there was a 7 percent increase in data consumption in Maharashtra which is the highest data consumer.
In terms of total capacity addition, there has been an increase of 8 percent in H1 2020, taking India’s total colocation capacity to 375 MW. H1 2020 witnessed a supply addition of 27 MW, which is 56 percent of the total addition seen in 2019 (48 MW). Mumbai continued its lead with addition of 19 MW, followed by Bengaluru at 5 MW and Delhi NCR at 3 MW.
“Mumbai is expected to see the highest capacity addition as it continues to be the preferred choice for large cloud players because of its infrastructure advantage. Chennai is also proving to be an attractive destination due to its advantages of submarine cable landing stations and low development cost,” says Samantak Das, Chief Economist and Head of Research and REIS, JLL India.
