India’s data centre boom: powering sustainable growth

India's data centre boom: powering sustainable growth

With close to 700 million people tapping on phones, India is the second largest market of internet users, after China, with mobile broadband usage exceeding anywhere else on the planet.

Increasing data consumption and internet bandwidth is driven by the uptake of smart devices, data localisation, favourable government policies and advancements in technology. The Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns accelerated the demand as government workers, businesses and students were confined to online platforms to maintain a semblance of normality and continuity. 

With usage expected to grow exponentially, India is fast becoming an emerging market for data centres in Asia Pacific and could soon be a strong competitor to more mature, albeit saturated, markets in the region such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Despite rapid growth and the vast potential for more, sustainability challenges remain. Data centres are intensive energy users, with power needed round the clock to keep servers running. Greening an energy-guzzling industry such as this will take political will, reliable and vast amounts of renewable energy and technology to bring about efficiencies in day-to-day operations. 

This report was written by Eco-Business Research in partnership with CtrlS Datacenters. 

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