The Reserve Bank of India's local data storage mandate, the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, and state-specific data center policies have increased the long-term domestic growth prospects of companies like NTT Global Data Centers, the company's India head continued.

 

“These policies triggered the local CIO (chief information officer) to understand the importance of housing data within India, the cost benefits it would bring about and how beneficial it was to do that. I can't quantify how much revenue they created, but it is a change that has brought about in the society itself,” Shekhar Sharma said.

 

Over the last decade, the company has seen average growth of 6% year-on-year in its data centre business in India and is likely to see this momentum continuing. The company will also expand the capacity of 14 of the 18 already functional data centres in India to bring the total load capacity to 541 MW over the next five years from 268 MW now, as per economic times.

 

However, he added, the corporation would keep these data centers located in major cities and metro areas because these areas have more stable power supplies and more client demand.

 

Although big cities have expensive real estate and other resources, including power, data centers can charge more to clients in these regions, according to Sharma.

 

According to Sharma, the majority of the demand and ensuing growth have come from the banking and finance industries, and more recently, state and federal governments as well.

 

According to Adams, the deployment of generative and predictive artificial intelligence has contributed to the expansion of data centers in India by enabling better maintenance scheduling by businesses.