India's data centre capacity to double by 2027, rise 5x by 2030: Macquarie

India's data centre pipeline to expand on AI infrastructure, data localisation, and cloud adoption, with $45 bn investment potential by 2030, says Macquarie

India’s data centre (DC) capacity is expected to double based on under-construction capacity, and may increase five times by 2030 if pipeline capacity is fast-tracked, according to a report by Macquarie Equity Research.

 

The report stated that India currently has 1.4 gigawatt (GW) of operational DC capacity, with around 1.4 GW under construction and another about 5 GW in the planning stage. 

This would be bolstered by data localisation laws, enabling regulatory environment and subsidies from governments, and rising cloud adoption, among other tailwinds.

 

DC share of India electricity demand is forecast to increase to 1.9 to 3.2 per cent by 2030 from 0.8 per cent in 2024, with cumulative capital expenditure, excluding servers, ranging between $30 to 45 billion over the next five years.

 

This comes even as the country has seen gigawatt (GW)-scale DC announcements recently. 

 

Earlier this month, global tech giant Google announced a $15 billion investment in building an AI infrastructure hub in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam, which would include a gigawatt-scale data centre in partnership with Adani Group.

 

Similarly, Tata Consultancy Services announced a $6.5 billion investment to build a 1 GW data centre network in India. 

 

“Earlier, Jio announced its ambition for a fully integrated green AI DC in Jamnagar with both Meta and Google as partners, and AWS committed US$13bn to augment its India cloud capacity by 2030,” the report added.

 

However, the report also noted the need for a dedicated policy for data centres, as cities such as Mumbai and Chennai which serve as hubs also face severe water stress.  

“India needs a DC policy that accounts for water use in addition to other critical infrastructure support for land and electricity,” it added.

 

While Mumbai currently accounts for 40 per cent of India’s DC capacity, with its operational capacity slightly above that of Hong Kong, Chennai has around 20 per cent of the industry.