THE NEXT DATA GIANT

With Google's proposed $15-billion gigawatt-scale hub in Visakhapatnam, India races to expand data capacity and host the world's digital traffic

- By AJAY SUKUMARAN

INDIA’S NASCENT DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY RECEIVED A FILLIP THIS MONTH when internet giant Google announced a $15 billion (Rs 1.32 lakh crore) plan to build a 1-gigawatt (GW) facility in Visakhapatnam, the first of its scale in the country. The investment, spread over five years until 2030, includes building a new international subsea gateway in the east-coast city to enable fibreoptic cables carrying global internet and data traffic to land.

India generates nearly 20 per cent of the world’s data, but holds barely 3 per cent of its global storage capacity. Hence, the country is expected to witness a data centre boom in the coming years. Fuelling this expansion is India’s ongoing digital transformation—rapid growth in smartphone usage, data consumption and digital services such as cashless and real-time transactions through UPI. According to the Ericsson Mobility Report 2025, the country’s data traffic per smartphone is among the highest in the world at 32 GB per month, owing to the rapid adoption of 5G. It could nearly double to 62 GB by 2030.

The 2018 Reserve Bank of India regulations mandating that all financial data be stored locally acted as one of the triggers for the growth in data centre demand. Another stimulant came in 2022 with the government designating these centres as key infrastructure. Therefore, from 590 MW in 2019, India’s data centre capacity has more than doubled to 1.4 GW in 2024.