Airtel's arm infusing Rs 600 cr to build east India's largest data center

Bharti Airtel subsidiary Nxtra Data Ltd Tuesday said the company will invest Rs 600 crore in the development of its largest data center in east India.

The center when developed will serve the underserved markets of the east and north-east regions along with the SAARC countries, Nxtra Executive Director and chief operating officer Rajesh Tapadia said on the occasion of the ground breaking ceremony.

The company will invest Rs 600 crore to build the 25 MW data center in Bengal Silicon Valley, Kolkata and will be fully operational by 2024, he said.

It will also fulfill the growing needs of enterprises and global cloud players.

"Nxtra is on an expansion spree and will invest over Rs 5000 crore over the next four years to expand its capacity by 3X to over 400 MW. The company has already invested and partnered with eight organisations to source more than 180,000 MWh of renewable energy," Tapadia said.

"Nxtra has the ambition to reach net zero by 2031," he added.

The company said "Once ready, it (the center) will be Nxtra's first large-scale facility in east India in addition to its already existing 12 large and 120 edge facilities across India totalling 180 MW".

The new center will further cement Nxtra's position as the nation's largest network of data centers, it added.

Tapadia said that Nxtra is investing extensively in green energy and its state-of-the-art, carrier-neutral, hyper-scale Kolkata data center will run on renewable sources of energy.

Assuring support for the project, the state government claimed that several more companies have lined up large data center projects in the city.

It has earmarked 250 acres for Bengal Silicon Valley in New Town and land demand for data centers by various companies may reach 50 per cent of the total, an official said.

West Bengal Information Technology and Electronics Minister Babul Supriyo, West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation managing director Debashis Sen were present on the occasion.