States charge up for a data centre boom as global majors bet big on India

An inevitable rise in land prices in such areas is also a cause for concern

In her 2020 Union Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman outlined a national data policy, citing the truism that data is the new oil. Some months before that, in 2019, Europe’s largest data centre hubs, Amsterdam and Singapore, which accounted for 60 per cent of Southeast Asia’s data centre supply, had announced a pause citing reasons from higher power intake to environmental sustainability.

On Tuesday, as Sitharaman delivers her fourth Budget speech with some expected an­n­ouncements on driving “Dig­ital India”, Singapore has lifted its moratorium with a condition on “sustainability” and India is slowly starting to fill the gaps created