India's installed data centre capacity to rise 4-fold by 2030: Report

India's data centre industry is witnessing a sharp expansion phase, with installed capacity expected to grow more than fourfold by 2030, according to a report published by Rubix Data Sciences.

 

The sector's installed capacity is projected to increase from 1.5 GW in 2025 to 6.5 GW by 2030, according to the report, which said that India added 387 MW of IT capacity in 2025, more than double the 191 MW added in 2024.

 

Cloud computing, AI workloads core drivers

 

As of January 2026, India had 271 data centres, with Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, and Chennai together accounting for nearly 65 per cent of the country's facilities. In June last year, India ranked seventh globally by the number of data centre facilities.

 

The rapid expansion of data centres in India would be driven by a rise in demand from cloud computing, AI workloads and digital services such as 5G, e-commerce, UPI and OTT platforms, alongside India's cost advantage, the report said. It added that construction costs for data centres in India are estimated to be 30-40 per cent lower than in China and the US.

 

Led by commitments from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google totalling around $67.5 billion, the sector's investment pipeline in India stands at around $90 billion, nearly six times the $13-15 billion invested between 2020 and 2024, according to the report.

 

Furthermore, India’s AI-driven digital infrastructure, including data centres,  could catalyse up to 4200 billion in investments in the years ahead, the Centre has estimated.

 

Data centre boom to strain water and power resources

 

The rapid expansion is also expected to increase pressure on water and power resources. Currently, data centres in India consume around 150 billion litres of water annually. By 2030, the figure is expected to rise to nearly 359 billion litres, with more than half of the facilities located in water-stressed regions, the report said.

 

Electricity demand from the sector is expected to surge more than 13-fold, from around 1 GW currently to 13.56 GW by 2031-32, according to the Ministry of Power, even as the sector is working to decarbonise its operations in line with India's 2070 net-zero target.

 

Next challenge: Scaling execution  

 

Despite generating nearly 20 per cent of the world's data, India currently accounts for only around 3–4 per cent of global data centre capacity, leaving substantial headroom for growth, the report stated. It said, “With continued hyperscale investment, supportive government policy and an expanding renewable energy base, India is well positioned to emerge as one of the world's leading hubs for hyperscale and colocation data centre development.”

 

Rubix Data Sciences President Tushar Bhaskar said, "India’s data centre industry has moved past its early growth phase and is now in the middle of a large-scale, AI-driven investment cycle, with the current pipeline significantly outpacing historical investments. As demand from hyperscalers, AI workloads, and digital enterprises accelerates, the next test for the industry will be execution.”