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The emergence of edge data centres has attracted real estate players due to the need for lower latency, real-time analysis, enhanced app performance, and business agility.
By definition, Edge Data Centers are small, localised data processing facilities situated close to devices and end users. These centers help in enhancing performance and efficiency for real-time applications. Executives of real estate firms say that emerging hubs like Faridabad among many tier 2 cities are gaining attention for their strategic connectivity and infrastructure readiness. At the same time, Tier 2 cities with abundant and affordable land are being eyed for new developments, particularly for edge data centres where proximity to local users is critical, executives say. "The growing investment in data centres--projected at USD 20-25 billion by 2030--is a clear sign of how digital infrastructure is becoming more central to India's growth story. This shift is gradually reshaping real estate priorities as well," Uddhav Poddar, CMD of Bhumika Group, said."Emerging hubs like Faridabad are gaining attention for their strategic connectivity and infrastructure readiness," he added. He further elaborates that developers must now focus on "power availability, connectivity, and compliance with technical requirements that go beyond traditional commercial or industrial spaces". This means that real estate development for data centres requires a unique blend of technical expertise and strategic location planning. According to a report by real estate and investment firm Colliers, while hyperscale data centres have dominated the narrative so far, the evolution of edge data centres is on the rise. A hyperscale data center is a very large facility designed to handle massive amounts of data, compute, and storage needs, typically used by large internet companies and cloud service providers. "Interestingly, the market is expanding beyond large-scale colocation facilities and hyperscalers to edge data centres driven by increasing need for lower latency, real-time analysis, enhanced app performance, and business agility," said Jatin Shah, Chief Operating Officer, Colliers India. India's DC capacity has grown over 4X times in the last 6-7 years and stands at 1,263 MW as of April 2025 and is expected to cross 4,500 MW by 2030 with USD 20-25 billion, the Colliers report added. On the supply front, India has witnessed 859 MW of capacity addition across the top seven primary DC markets since the beginning of 2020. In terms of geographical spread, 44 per cent of the new supply since 2020 was concentrated in Mumbai. This was followed by Chennai and Delhi NCR, which together accounted for 42 per cent of the capacity addition since 2020. (ANI)
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