Digital Realty is the largest provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions globally
Brookfield Infrastructure is one of the largest infrastructure investors globally
The joint venture is developing world class data centers across multiple locations in India
Mumbai, NFAPost: Reliance Industries Limited (“RIL”) announced entering into an agreement to invest alongside Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Realty in their Indian SPVs set up for developing data centers in India. RIL will hold 33.33% stake in each of the Indian SPVs and become an equal partner.
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (“Digital Realty”) is the largest provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions globally with 300+ data centers across 27 countries.
They have a joint venture (“JV”) with Brookfield Infrastructure that is developing high-quality, highly-connected, scalable data centers to meet the critical infrastructure needs of enterprises and digital services companies in India. RIL will become an equal partner in the JV. The JV will be branded as ‘Digital Connexion: A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company’.
The JV is currently developing data centers in marquee locations of Chennai and Mumbai. The JV’s first 20 megawatt (MW) greenfield data center (MAA10), on a 100 MW campus in Chennai, is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The JV recently announced the acquisition of 2.15 acres of land in Mumbai, to build a 40 MW data center.
Given the location of these sites, the data centers will be connected to critical terrestrial connectivity infrastructure, as well as undersea cables, and will become hubs for global connectivity for Indian companies and gateways into India for multi-national companies.
Data center capacity in India is expected to increase multi-fold over the next few years. Indians are already amongst the largest mobile data consumers globally. This will further increase significantly with increasing access to various digital services like OTT platforms and gaming and the ongoing 5G roll-out.
Adoption of 5G use cases by enterprises will lead to the adoption of data-intensive technologies like internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). The ongoing innovations in generative AI technology have been enabled by hardware and data center infrastructure, and the requirement of these is only set to increase exponentially.
There is also an increased emphasis on localization of personal data within the country. These drivers will significantly increase the data center and compute capacity requirements of the country.
The JV will be well positioned to serve global and local enterprises, SMBs and the vibrant start-ups of India, for their cloud and colocation requirements as they move their compute resources on the cloud and off-premise.
Data centers developed by the JV will leverage Digital Realty’s industry-leading energy-efficient data center platform design and operating procedures, highly-repeatable Pervasive Data Center Architecture (PDx®) approach and relationships with global customers, Brookfield’s in-depth knowledge of the Indian infrastructure market, and Jio’s massive digital and connectivity ecosystem and very strong enterprise relationships with an existing client base of 80% of large named private enterprises in India.
Jio’s world class, all-IP, data strong, future proof, 4G and 5G connectivity network with deep fiber presence, covering ~99.5% of the Indian population, strategically expands the JV’s connectivity to data centers and other establishments in the country.
It extends the reach of PlatformDIGITAL®, Digital Realty’s best-in-class global data center platform with 300+ data centers, in 50+ metros, across 27 countries and 6 continents, giving customers access to a dense connected data community of partners, solutions and services, including Jio’s network, cloud and other service solutions in India.
Speaking about the transaction, Jio Platforms Limited CEO Kiran Thomas said the company is excited to partner with Digital Realty, one of the most innovative data center companies globally and with Brookfield, existing and trusted partner.
“The partnership will help us serve our enterprise and SMB clients with cutting-edge, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud and lead their digital transformation and make them more competitive and efficient. The unique and highly engaging consumer and home experiences that we are offering and further innovating on, such as high-definition live content, AR / VR experiences, cloud gaming, immersive shopping experiences and cloud PC have massive compute capacity requirements,” said Jio Platforms Limited CEO Kiran Thomas.
He also said the company would like to thank the Indian government for granting infrastructure status to data centers and for creating a favorable ecosystem for their development and operations, which is critical for India’s vision to become a $1 Trillion digital economy by 2025.
Brookfield Managing Director, Head of Infrastructure, India & Middle East Arpit Agrawal added Brookfield is very pleased to expand its existing partnership with Reliance and add their deep expertise in the Indian telecom, tech and data landscape to the platform.
“Data Centers provide essential services and critical infrastructure to support the digitalization that is taking place in every aspect of life in India. Together with Reliance and Digital Realty, we look forward to providing the best of solutions to the digital transformation needs of Indian and global corporates,” said Brookfield Managing Director, Head of Infrastructure, India & Middle East Arpit Agrawal.
Digital Realty Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Serene Nah said India is a mostly untapped market for the data center industry driven by the rapid adoption of digital business models, the world’s largest population, and a government that recognises the role of technology for future economic development.
“This joint venture brings together three global leaders in digital infrastructure to accelerate Digital India by developing, owning and operating institutional quality carrier-and cloud neutral data centers across India,” said Digital Realty Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Serene Nah.
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas acted as legal advisors, and Deloitte, Haskins & Sells LLP acted as accounting and tax diligence advisor to RIL.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to complete in around 3 months.
About Reliance Industries Limited
Reliance is India’s largest private sector company, with a consolidated revenue of INR 976,524 crore ($118.8 billion) and net profit of INR 74,088 crore ($9.0 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2023. Reliance’s activities span hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, advanced materials and composites, renewables (solar and hydrogen), retail and digital services.
Currently ranking 104th, Reliance is the largest private sector company from India to feature in Fortune’s Global 500 list of “World’s Largest Companies” for 2022. The company stands 45th in the Forbes Global 2000 rankings of “World’s Largest Public Companies” for 2023 – top-most among Indian companies. Reliance has been ranked among the world’s 20 best companies to work with, highest amongst Indian companies in Forbes’ World’s Best Employers for 2022. It features among LinkedIn’s “Top Companies 2023: The 25 Best Workplaces To Grow Your Career In India”. Website: www.ril.com
About Jio Platforms Limited
Jio Platforms Limited (“Jio”), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has built a world-class, all-IP, data strong, future proof network with 4G LTE and 5G technologies (through its wholly owned subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited). It is the only network conceived as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up. It is future-ready and can be easily upgraded to support even more data, as technologies advance to 6G and beyond.
Jio has brought transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.4 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in the digital economy. It has created an eco-system comprising of network, devices, applications and content, service experience, and affordable tariffs for everyone to live the Jio Digital Life.
About Brookfield Infrastructure
Brookfield Infrastructure is a leading global infrastructure company that owns and operates high-quality, long-life assets in the utilities, transport, midstream and data sectors across North and South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Brookfield Infrastructure is focused on assets that generate stable cash flows and require minimal maintenance capital expenditures. Further information is available at https://bip.brookfield.com.
Brookfield Infrastructure is the flagship listed infrastructure company of Brookfield Asset Management, a global alternative asset manager with over $825 billion of assets under management. For more information, go to https://brookfield.com.
In India, Brookfield has $24 billion in assets under management across Infrastructure, Real Estate, Renewable Power & Transition and Private Equity.
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 27 countries on 6 continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Digital Connexion: A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company
Digital Connexion is a joint venture (JV) between Brookfield Infrastructure, Reliance Industries and Digital Realty. The company provides the full spectrum of highly-connected and scalable data center, colocation and interconnection solutions to meet the critical infrastructure needs of enterprises and digital services companies in India, and brings together enterprises, network service, cloud and IT providers to give customers and partners a key connectivity gateway to Europe, the Middle, East, Africa and Asia. The JV combines the complementary strengths of Jio’s massive digital and connectivity ecosystem in India and tech capabilities with Brookfield Infrastructure, one of the largest owners and operators of critical global infrastructure, and Digital Realty, provider of the world’s largest data center platform enabling customers with access to over 50 metros across 6 continents.
