India could emerge as a preferred data hub for the entire region, as the demand for data centres are unequivocally rising, according to a report by JM Financial.
The report added that both structural and cyclical trends are fueling the growth of data centre demand.
A large internet user base generating a trove of data, the government’s data localisation push and artificial intelligence (AI) are some of the structural tailwinds.
As per the report, India has a disproportionally low share of DCs – it generates 20 per cent of global data but only 5.5 percent of global DC capacity – and slower-than-expected capacity addition in the past has exacerbated the demand-supply mismatch, ushering in a cyclical surge in DC capacity construction.The report further adds that its bottom-up research suggests that India’s India’s Colocation (colo) data centre capacity will be 1.35GW in 2024, up 38 per cent year on year.
Despite this, the report said that the country has one of the world’s lowest DC densities at 14 petabyte/MW. To achieve 50 per cent of China’s DC density, India needs 5GW of total capacity by 2030. This aligns with the current announced under-construction + planned capacity of 3.3GW by2028.
At an average capex/MW of ₹465 million, this will translate into an incremental capital outlay of $20 billion over the next 5 years. The report adds that the investments on cloud infrastructure (servers, etc.) could be an additional $60 billion. “While a majority of the cloud infrastructure spend will be done by hyperscalers, in our view, capex towards DC capacity ($20bn) alone could entail equity issuance of $10bn (assuming average D/E of global players). Still, these will merely serve India’s domestic demand,” the report added.
A data centre is a physical facility that organizations use to house their critical applications and data. Its design is based on a network of computing and storage resources that enable the delivery of shared applications and data. The key components of a data centre design include routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application-delivery controllers. The Hindu BusinessLine