NxtGen plans to invest Rs 1,300 crore in data centres across the country

NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies is gearing up to invest Rs 1,300 crore to set up around 10 more data centers and 236 edge centers across the country.

The company, whose investors include Intel, IFC, and Iron Mountain, is in the process of raising $100 million by the first quarter of 2022-23. The Cloud storage and computing segment player operates four data centers in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahme­dabad, and Bengaluru and is planning to set up centres in Chennai, Hyder­abad, and Visakhapatnam.

“For 10 more data centres, we are investing around Rs 500 crore. To complement these, another 236 edge data centers are also being planned that may see another Rs 800-crore investment,” said A S Rajgopal, chief executive officer and managing director, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies.

To fund these expansion plans, the company is in talks with investors to raise around $100 million. “We want to fund roughly around Rs 600 crore through equity and if we are committed to the ESG (environment, social, and governance) thought process, a lot of funds will be ready to invest in data centers,” he said.

When asked about the government’s move to come up with infrastructure status for data centres and a specialised policy, he said an infrastructure status would help the industry players to get long-term loans as compared to seven-year term loans that they get now.

India’s data centre industry has around 499 megawatt (Mw) of critical information technology capacity, of which seven cities account for 490 Mw.

“Even when we started first in 2014, we used to generate 250 kwh of rooftoop solar power. We are also looking at things like green building, recycling electronic waste, and reducing the cost of mobility,” he said.

Apart from sops like easy land availability, electricity tax exemption, and power at existing industrial tariffs, some states are offering special offers to companies that are meeting at least 30 per cent of their power consumption via renewable energy sources.

Based on the latest data available with industry body Nasscom, the country has around 80 third-party data centres and is expected to see investments of around $4.5 billion by 2025.