Princeton Digital seals Rs 125 cr annual lease deal in Navi Mumbai's Airoli

Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group (PDG), Asia’s leading data centre provider,  has taken on lease over 1 million sq. ft. of space across three buildings in the Airoli Knowledge Park, Navi Mumbai—marking a major expansion of its digital infrastructure footprint in India.

 

The properties, owned and sub-leased by Gigaplex Estate Pvt Ltd, will be used by Princeton Digital Group (PDG) to set up large-scale data center operations. The transaction spans three buildings—9A, 7, and 11—located on Plot No. IT-5, with a combined chargeable area of 10,58,568 sq. ft, according to property documents accesed by CRE Matrix, a real estate analytics firm.  Lease details: 

 

 

Effective Rent Rate: Rs 98.50 per sq. ft. across all buildings

 

Lease Period: 20 years for Buildings 9A & 7, and 40 years for Building 11

 

Lock-In Period: 15 years

 

Annual Rent Escalation: 4% for the first 15 years, increasing to 5% thereafter 

In addition to the base rent, parking charges of Rs 5,000 per car per month and complex maintenance charges of ₹2 per sq. ft. (with 5% annual escalation) will apply, further elevating the value of the deal. 

With a total starting monthly rent of ₹10.42 crore, the first-year rent alone amounts to ₹125.04 crore, excluding other costs such as maintenance and parking. Given the 15-year lock-in and 20–40 year lease durations, the long-term financial commitment exceeds several thousand crores.

 

This reflects Princeton Digital Group’s confidence in India’s digital growth trajectory and its intent to build out a large-scale hyperscale data center hub in Navi Mumbai. 

Last year, Princeton Digital Group unveiled a major growth plan for India by expanding capacity to a total of 230 MW in the country, driving an investment programme of $1 billion. This is part of PDG’s new $5-billion investment programme for AI-ready data centres in Asia. 

 

In September 2024, Princeton Digital Group entered into a strategic partnership with K Raheja Corp-backed Mindspace Business Parks REIT to develop the formers’ largest data center campus in India, at Mindspace Airoli West. 

 

Navi Mumbai has emerged as a leading hub for cloud infrastructure, driven by its strategic location near submarine cable landing stations, stable power supply with zero outage, availability of renewable energy, and robust infrastructure. 

 

Mumbai has emerged as one of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region's most competitive data centre leasing markets, driven by AWS-led colocation growth. The city’s data centre ecosystem is being transformed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is significantly scaling through large-scale colocation leases rather than self-builds, accelerating Mumbai’s emergence as a regional data centre powerhouse, said the latest Knight Frank report titled 'Global Data Centres Report'.