Canada Pension Plan Investment Boards invests up to ₹7,000cr in CtrlS

Partnership includes an 8.2 per cent stake acquisition and a joint venture to develop hyperscale datacenter campuses across India amid rising AI and cloud demand

CtrlS Datacenters, domestic data centre operator, announced that it has raised a total of ₹7,000 crore at a pre-money valuation of $4.7 billion. The investment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investment) will see the firm creating data centre capacity of almost 4 gigawatts.

 

As part of the partnership, CPPIB will invest ₹4,000 crore (C$588 million) to acquire an 8.2 per cent stake in CtrlS. In addition, both the firms will form a joint venture to develop hyperscale datacenter campuses across India.

 

For the JV, CPP Investments has committed up to ₹3,000 crore (C$441 million) and will hold 48 per cent equity ownership, with CtrlS owning 52 per cent.

 

For CtrlS this is the first fund raise from an institutional player. Before this the firm raised some funds from family and friends. The family and friends include Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.

 

The ₹4,000 crore will be invested in building capacity. At present the firm has about 1.2 GW of capacity under construction. In addition, more than 3 GW is in the planning stage, with land acquired and power secured.

 

The partnership aims to speed up the development of next-generation datacenter

 

infrastructure to meet rising demand from hyperscalers, cloud services, AI applications, and India’s rapidly expanding digital economy.

 

“This investment is a strong validation of our platform. CPPIB is not a passive investor and has made significant investments in this sector globally. Their decision to invest in ControlS is an important external validation of our capabilities and platform,” said Sridhar Pinnapureddy, founder & CEO, CtrlS Datacenters.

 

In an interview with Business Standard over a virual call, he added that the JV created will be focused on hyperscalers and will be a complex of data centres.

 

“We have built 19 data centres across 10 cities so far. Two more—one each in Patna and GIFT City-- are under construction and will go live within the next three months. Our hyperscale campuses are in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. We are looking to expand hyperscale campuses into Vizag and Gujarat,” he added.

 

Pinnapureddy believes that India’s AI moment is already here. The demand signals from hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and enterprises are clear and unmistakable.

 

“Demand is currently being driven primarily by AI. Even before AI, the industry was growing at around 20 per cent annually due to cloud adoption, increased data usage and mobile usage. AI has added another layer of growth. Industry growth rates are expected to be around 30-35 per cent,” he said.

 

The firm already has a big chunk of the domestic market, it is among the top four players in the data centre space.

 

CtrlS is one of the leading players in the enterprise and BFSI sectors. “Seventeen of India's top 20 banks are hosted in our data centres. We have more than 50 per cent market share among foreign banks and insurance companies. Of the top 100 Indian companies, around 30-35 are our customers. That business continues to grow,” he said.

 

In a statement Max Biagosch, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Real Assets at CPP Investments, said “Demand for datacentre infrastructure in India continues to accelerate, driven by hyperscale expansion, strong domestic cloud growth and emerging AI-led demand. This partnership with CtrlS positions us to scale high-quality infrastructure and deliver long-term value for CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”

 

Since making its first direct investment in 2017, CPP Investments has actively invested in the global datacenter sector, building a diversified portfolio of datacenter assets and joint

 

ventures across major international hubs, including Asia Pacific. CPP Investments made its first investment in India in 2009 and opened its Mumbai office in 2015. As of March 31, 2026, CPP Investments holds over ₹1,850 billion (C$27 billion) in net assets in India, making it one of the country’s largest international institutional investors.

 

When asked about listing plans, Pinnapureddy said that there is still some more time. “I would say the horizon is 12-36 months. “It is a natural phase. We have to go to that route given the capex requirement. We may also look at a pre-IPO round as well,” he said.