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Mumbai has emerged as India's leading data centre market and one of the key digital infrastructure hubs in Asia-Pacific with 774 MW of operational IT capacity and nearly 5 GW of data centre capacity in the pipeline, according to a report by Knight Frank.
As per the report, India's data centre landscape is becoming increasingly diversified. Interestingly, Tier-II cities including Visakhapatnam and Jamnagar are also emerging as greenfield data centre destinations, on the back of government initiatives and planned subsea cable connectivity. "India's Data Centre market continues to strengthen its global standing, with Mumbai ranking 15th globally by operational Data Centre capacity and 11th globally by development pipeline," according to the latest Knight Frank Global Data Centre Atlas 2026 report. The report noted that India's gateway data centre markets continue to attract global investment due to several structural advantages. While Mumbai remains the country's primary international connectivity hub, "Hyderabad has established itself as a preferred destination for hyperscale cloud providers owing to its availability of large development parcels, proactive policy support, growing technology ecosystem and competitive operating costs," it noted. At the same time, Bengaluru continues to benefit from strong demand from Global Capability Centres (GCCs), research and development facilities, and enterprise colocation services. Emerging markets such as Pune and the National Capital Region (NCR) are also expanding rapidly, driven by demand for cost-effective data centre capacity from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector and public cloud providers. Beyond these cities, "Chennai has strengthened its position as a strategic gateway for Southeast Asian internet traffic, bolstered by competitive power tariffs and a supportive policy environment," it said. The report noted that the world's largest operational data centre markets continue to be dominated by mature North American hubs alongside established centres including Tokyo, London, Dublin, Singapore and Johor. India's data centre market is expanding rapidly, however, it remains at a relatively early stage of development. "While demand fundamentals remain exceptionally strong, the next phase of growth will increasingly depend on timely power availability, transmission infrastructure, faster approvals, expansion of fibre connectivity, sustainable energy sourcing and the creation of larger campus-scale developments capable of supporting AI workloads," it said. (ANI)
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