Adani forays into data centre business, sets up 50:50 JV with EdgeConnex

Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the Adani group, on Monday said it had entered into a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with EdgeConnex, a leading global data centre operator, to develop and operate data centres across India. The idea behind the JV, AdaniConneX, was to leverage the two partners’ complementary expertise and capabilities, it said.

In addition to full-scale data centres, AdaniConneX will also develop a portfolio of Edge data centres strategically located across the country to address the need for more proximate capacity. These Edge sites were designed and planned to easily scale with demand and become full-scale data centre campuses, it said. Importantly, this pan-Indian platform of hyperscale. and hyperlocal data centres would largely be powered by renewable energy, the company added.

“In Adani, we have the ideal partner in India,” said Randy Brouckman, chief executive of EdgeConneX. “They possess the necessary capabilities and unique expertise in India required to build out critical digital infrastructure that can best support our customers across the entire country. We look forward to investing in the digital economy of India and meeting our customers’ needs throughout the region in collaboration with Adani.”

The partnership will leverage Adani’s expertise in full-stack energy management, renewable power and real estate development, as well as its experience in building and managing large infrastructure projects throughout India.

“One of the best manifestations of Prime Minister (Narendra Modi)’s Digital India vision is the speed with which the entire Indian population has come online and the subsequent continued exponential growth in data consumption,” said Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group.

“India currently has one of world’s largest data subscriber populations and to address the need for a reliable infrastructure to support cloud, content, network, internet of things (IoT), 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise requirements, data centres are a fundamental infrastructure need of the nation. The Adani group brings to the table a unique combination of green power, real estate expertise, access to undersea cable landing stations, and several nodes across the country to serve as edge locations. In addition to EdgeConneX’s domain expertise and cutting-edge technology in the data centre business, we have been very impressed with the agility they bring to the joint venture,” Adani said.

The AdaniConneX JV will focus on building a network of hyperscale data centres in India, starting with the Chennai, Navi Mumbai, Noida, Vizag and Hyderabad markets. Development and construction at these sites have already begun.