Mumbai becomes 3rd biggest data centre mkt in Asia-Pacific

Mumbai: Mumbai has become the third biggest data centre market in the Asia-Pacific region, with a total capacity at 2,337 MW and breaching the 2GW mark in Q1, a report showed on Monday.

The live capacity (operational capacity) stood at 270 MW in the city with over half of the total capacity in the early stage at 1,272 MW, which means 11.55 per cent of its capacity is now in the live segment, according to the report by international property consultant, Knight Frank. NTT-Netmagic and CtrlS data centre providers constitute just over half of the live capacity in the Mumbai market currently.

"As data centres gain prominence as an asset class in the country, investors are leveraging various strategies such as mergers and acquisitions (M&As), joint ventures, and land acquisitions to tap into this thriving sector," said Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director at Knight Frank India.

As a representative of India's growing data centre landscape, "Mumbai has emerged as a key beneficiary with significant growth in its total capacity", he added. Over 328MW of data centre capacity was added in Mumbai in the first quarter this year, driven by announcements from existing players and a new market entrant - Digital Edge, a Stonepeak-backed operator set to deliver a hyperscale facility to the market.

"Supply movements have moderated compared to previous quarters, with over 40 per cent of its current live capacity absorbed throughout 2022," the report mentioned. The report, in partnership with leading data centre research and analytics platform DC Byte, showed that Shanghai (2,692MW), Tokyo (2,575 MW), and Mumbai (2,337MW) emerged as the top Data Centre markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Bangkok also saw impressive growth, increasing nearly 30 per cent since the beginning of the year.