There was a 21% increase in the total data centre stock across the country in the first half of the year. Mumbai led the way with a substantial 54.9% share of the total capacity, followed by Chennai (12.3%), Bengaluru (8.2%) and Pune (7.2%), a report by Savills has said.
Overall, the country saw approximately 71 MW of IT capacity addition across key data centre micro markets in the country during the January-June period of 2024. The market witnessed transactions of around 200 MW in IT capacity during this period.
The market is expected to grow to approximately 400 MW IT capacity by the end of 2024, the report said.
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The report also said that there was an increased demand for Edge Data Centres (smaller facilities located close to the population they serve) emerging from Tier-II and Tier-III cities.
The total stock of data centres in the country has grown 21% year-on-year to 942 MW in H1 2024, from 778 MW in the corresponding six-month period last year.
Since 2014, when the metric stood at 158 MW, the total capacity has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 22%, per the report.
This demand was driven by hyperscalers, BFSI, IT and ITeS, and service sectors, all relying heavily on data centre operators for colocation and related services, the report said.
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“We project a strong demand for data centre capacity in India by the end of 2024, with an estimated requirement of 400 MW across major cities,โ said Srihari Srinivasan, Director and Lead Data Centre Services, Savills India.
He added that while supply is expected to reach 350 MW during the same period, data centre operators are expanding their service offerings beyond colocation to include networking, cloud solutions, specialized hardware like GPUs, and other managed services.
Sectoral break up
According to the report, hyperscalers accounted for 22% of the total stock, while enterprises held 10%. The remaining 68% was utilized by a combination of hyperscalers and enterprises, showcasing a diverse utilization pattern within the data centre industry.
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โThis growth is being driven by surging internet usage, the rise of 5G and the need for ultra-low latency for mobiles, which is also creating a growing demand for edge data centres in specific areas,โ said Srihari Srinivasan, Director and Lead Data Centre Services, Savills India. He added that increasing adoption of AI and IoT across various industries is fueling the need for data centre services, with GPU-powered solutions playing a key role in addressing these demands.
