New Delhi, NFAPost: Projected to grow to $8 billion market by 2026, India is poised to be a global hub for data centres focussed on cloud computing and riding on technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics, an ASSOCHAM-EY report has pointed out.
Enabled by an ecosystem of innovation, entrepreneurship and policy support, the Indian data centre market had already touched $4.4 billion in 2020, the report said, adding the next decade would witness an unprecedented change and new emerging technologies in the field.
Data centres in all forms, shapes, and roles —will continue to aid innovation and drive technology, leading to business transformation. ”As the country has the ability to leap directly into the multi-cloud age, India will be a main data centre growth hub for the next decade”, the report stated.
Currently, India has 80+ third-party data centres with a total count of approximately 130+, which is likely to increase exponentially in the upcoming years as the country strives to become a truly digital economy.
“India has been experiencing a massive digital transformation for the past few years. The surge in internet users, massive rise of startups, fast adoption of cloud computing, Government’s investment in the IT sector are some of the critical drivers of digital and economic growth,” said ASSOCHAM Secretary General Mr Deepak Sood.
According to the report, in a digitally connected world, the expanse of data generated on a day-to-day basis is growing significantly. This has enabled technology and data to be at the core of everything.
“More than ever before, organizations and businesses rely highly on data generation and its related Information and Technology (IT) infrastructure. As the reliance on data increases, the need for a robust, reliable, scalable and sustainable data centers increases as well. Therefore, it is rather prudent to term data as, “the ultimate renewable resource” as it spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry and enables myriad ways in which it can improve the world,” states the report.
The ASSOCHAM-EY report highlighted favorable market conditions such as low cost of internet and data plans and increasing demand hold potential for growth.
Interestingly, a connect is seen between the growth of data centres and a boost to the real estate sector. ”Data centres are also evolving as an alternate asset class for varying real estate portfolios. Hyperscale data centres are being developed by reputed Indian real estate developers in partnership with global operators. The real estate or the land cost for data centres is usually about 8 % to10 % of overall capital expenditure. Besides the metro cities, tier 2 and tier 3 cities are also emerging as drivers of the digital revolution.
The data centre market in India is witnessing healthy growth primarily due to availability of large hyper-scalers that have started outsourcing their storage needs to third-party data center providers.
Furthermore, due to the complex and fast-moving environment, there is a clear operational imperative for the organizations to reimagine business resilience, unearth new opportunities, and reassess their future. The question is, how can companies achieve this, and more specifically, how can they discover or exploit the latest digital trends available in the market for this very purpose?
With the Government of India supporting the data center industry, multiple global data center and cloud service players are marking their footprint in India in addition to the local players. Besides pushing digital adoption for end-user industries and Small & Medium Enterprises (SME), there are several initiatives taken by the government to promote data localization, which have resulted in a boom.
“Some of the prominent initiatives worth highlighting include the Government of India Cloud/Meghraj, Storage of Payment
System Data, Draft Data Protection Bill, and Single Window Clearance system, which provides impetus for further growth
for data centers,” states the report.
