We need an innovative India Cloud that caters to our people: Rajeev Chandrasekhar (IANS Interview)

NISHANT ARORA

New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) As data centre business surges in India amid the demand from various industry stakeholders to store citizens' data locally, the government is planning to create more innovations around the India Cloud just like India Stack, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has stressed.

The minister told IANS that the demand for storing data locally keeps growing as more and more global companies open their data centres in the country, like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others.

"I believe the government incentives should be directed at creating an innovative India Cloud that caters to our people. We need diversity in the Cloud in the country," stressed Chandrasekhar, as the world observed the International Data Center Day on Wednesday.

Amid the growing data localisation demand in India, the country is likely to witness 4,900-5,000 MW of capacity with an investment of Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the next six years.

The industry revenues are expected to increase at a CAGR of around 17-19 per cent during FY2023-FY2025, supported by an increase in capacity utilisation and ramp-up of new data centres, according to credit rating agency ICRA.

To cater to the increasing demand, Indian corporates like the Hiranandani Group, the Adani Group (in JV with EdgeConnex), the Reliance Group and foreign investors like Blackstone, CapitaLand, Princeton Digital Group (PDG) and Big Tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft have started investing massively in data centres in the country.

Hiranandani Group subsidiary Yotta Infrastructure recently laid the foundation stone of their 20-acre hyperscale data centre park in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The data centre park will be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 6,000-Rs 7,000 crore.

"Yotta investment in UP is a great example of how the Indian data centre market is growing exponentially," said Chandrasekhar.

Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) India last month said it will invest Rs 4,100 crore in Noida over the next 5-10 years to establish state-of-the-art data centres.

The promise of Noida emerging as a new data centre hub is supported by progressive policy impetus at both the Central and state governments.

Software giant Microsoft plans to expand their data centre investment in the country.

During his India visit in January this year, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella had said that they are growing their investment in India, like in building new data centres.

"We now have three data centres and the fourth one is coming soon," he informed.

According to Chandrasekhar, the country needs more and more Cloud providers.

"The incentives that we are thinking of is to create more innovation around the Indian Cloud," the minister told IANS.

(Nishant Arora can be reached at [email protected])