Country can grab large data centre mkt: Equinix India MD Manoj Paul

Equinix India MD Manoj Paul says AI adoption could drive data centre growth beyond traditional hubs, with the company aiming to expand its India capacity from 20 MW to 70 MW in 2-3 years

India’s next wave of data-centre growth could come from locations beyond traditional hubs such as Mumbai and Chennai, as the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) changes where companies build their infrastructure, said Manoj Paul, managing director (MD), Equinix India.

 

“If you look at India, the places you hear about are Visakhapatnam and Jamnagar, which are not your traditional data-centre hubs. These are unlikely places because when you talk about enterprises and their data, you need to be closer to them and their end customers. With AI, that picture is changing,” Paul told Business Standard in an exclusive interaction here in the city.

 

With AI, whether the data centre is used for inference or training, it can be far from the city, like a factory, he said, adding that the only requirements were stable power, land, and access to adequately trained human resources.

 

Equinix, one of the world’s largest digital infrastructure companies, with a presence in 36 countries, has data centres in Mumbai and Chennai. The company currently has roughly 20 megawatt (Mw) of data-centre capacity in India, and aims to take it to 70 Mw over the next two-three years, Paul said.

 

While the availability of power and other resources has improved by leaps and bounds, he said, there are still cost issues when it comes to securing land for data centres.

 

In some of the bigger cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai, land costs are comparable to those in global cities, which means most data centres being set up have to be built vertically rather than laid out horizontally, Paul said.

 

“The quality of power, however, has improved by leaps and bounds over the last five-ten years, both in terms of continuous supply and stability of voltage. It is comparable to the capacity of China and Singapore,” he said.

 

The debate on power, water, and other resource consumption by data centres should, however, also be seen in light of increasing use of internet-based mobility services, entertainment platforms, dining and shopping facilities, and other essential applications, Paul said.

 

There also needs to be some more customer education on where and how much power, water or other resources are used by data centres, and how they compare to the other sectors, he said.

 

“You have applications of banks, which allow you to transact in seconds. Or your taxi services and entertainment platforms. Is it possible or even feasible for all of them to set up their own data centres? We work with them to make their services more efficient and cut down on their latency for customers,” Paul said.