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Maharashtra, which currently hosts a large share of India's data centre infrastructure, plans to expand its digital backbone drastically over the next decade, State Development Commissioner-Industries Deependra Singh Kushwah told ANI today.
"At present, we are having approximately 1 gigawatt of data centre capacity in Maharashtra," Kushwah told ANI on the sidelines of the 7th CII Datacenter Blueprint Summit 2026, underscoring the state's leading role in the country's technology infrastructure. "We have signed memoranda of understanding worth around 5 lakh crore of upcoming investment in data centres in Maharashtra and I am confident that more than 5 gigawatt capacity will be generated by 2030," he said. Maharashtra accounts for a dominant portion of India's data centre stock, driven by favourable policy, ready access to infrastructure and a skilled talent pool, industry observers say. The state's proximity to undersea cable landing stations and strong connectivity have bolstered Mumbai and its surrounding areas as prime locations for hyperscale and enterprise data facilities. Kushwah said the government's proactive stance has helped attract leading operators and cloud service providers to set up facilities in the state. "All leading companies are having their operations and presence in Maharashtra," he said, noting that the existing capacity will be scaled up "5 times to 10 times in the next five to seven years," a target consistent with broader industry expectations for rapid growth in digital infrastructure. The planned expansion comes as demand for data storage and processing rises sharply nationwide. Industry reports project that India's total data centre capacity could surge multiple-fold by 2030 as cloud adoption, artificial intelligence workloads and digital services proliferate. Kushwah also addressed the challenge of powering such a vast network of facilities. Data centres are among the most energy-intensive users in the technology sector, requiring reliable and high-capacity electricity supply. "We as a state are currently a surplus state in terms of power," he said, adding that the volume of demand from data centres would necessitate expansion. We will be doubling our power generation and transmission capacity by 2030, and 50 per cent of this will come from renewable sources," Kushwah said, emphasising Maharashtra's commitment to sustainability. The commissioner said the state has assured investors that "Maharashtra will have sufficient electricity or power required for the data centres and the water and necessary infrastructure" to support their operations, a key consideration for large-scale facilities. The convergence of policy support, infrastructure readiness and aggressive investment plans positions Maharashtra to remain at the forefront of India's digital economy as the sector scales up ahead of the 2030 deadline. (ANI)
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