According to JLL’s H1 2020 ‘(Re)imagine Data Centers: Running India’s Digital Economy’ report, Mumbai and Chennai are expected to lead the data centre industry growth due to advantage of connectivity, power supply and user industry.
This huge growth would create a need for real estate space of 9.3 million sqf and open up a $4.9 billion greenfield investment opportunity (including construction) for real estate developers and investors during next five and half years ending 2025.
The impact of data protection laws, increased shift from captive to a colocation data centre and implementation of new technologies like 5G, edge computing and the internet of things will drive the next phase of demand for data centres, according to findings from the report.
The Indian data centre industry’s capacity is expected to grow to 1,078MW by 2025 from 375MW in H1 2020, registering a CAGR of 21%.
“As India embraced lockdown in March 2020 to combat the spread of the pandemic, all industries faced the challenge of keeping their businesses going,” said JLL.
“While most of the manufacturing sector, barring essential services came to standstill, those delivering services through digital medium were able to continue their operations due to the seamless support provided by the data centre industry.”
The data centre industry was labelled an essential service as it continues to provide support to industries, institutions as well as individuals affected by the ongoing crisis.
The growing dependence of several industries on this digital infrastructure partially helped to mitigate the impact of the lockdown.
Industries such as IT/ITeS, BFSI, e-commerce, capital markets, social media and education remained operational, thanks to India’s 375MW (IT power load) capacity, according to the report.
