Airtel's Nxtra to invest Rs 5k cr to double capacity in 3 yrs; deploys AI

Bharti Airtel's data centre company Nxtra plans to invest Rs 5,000 crore to double its capacity to around 400 megawatt over the next three years, the firm said on Wednesday.

The company had earlier set a target of reaching around 400 megawatt capacity by 2025.

Nxtra said it has become the first data centre in India to leverage AI to build digitised facilities engineered to drive smart capabilities like predictive maintenance, enhanced operational and energy efficiency, streamlined automation of operations and optimised capex utilisation.

Nxtra CEO Ashish Arora said the company will make a "Rs 5,000 crore investment over the next three years to double the Nxtra capacity to around 400 megawatt".

He said Nxtra has deployed the AI-powered SmartSense platform of Ecolibrium in the Chennai data centre and will now deploy capabilities across all its core data centres.

With the deployment, Nxtra aims to achieve a 10 per cent increase in asset life through real-time performance analytics to identify early signs of deterioration and provide corrective recommendations, a 10 per cent reduction in non-IT power consumption through early identification of deviations and energy loss in each piece of equipment.

The company expects a 15 per cent increase in equipment performance through AI-driven Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD) algorithms and preventative maintenance.

It also expects a 25 per cent improvement in productivity with intelligent and proactive insights across all data centre operations by implementing AI technology.