Ascendas India Trust to build data centers in India

Located at Airoli, a growing data center in Navi Mumbai, the 6.6-acre site will be phased into a fully-equipped data center campus with a total potential built-up area of ​​up to 575,000 square feet ( square feet) and 90 megawatts (MW) of power to house global tech giants and cloud service providers, as well as large domestic corporate customers.

The site acquisition is expected to be finalized by the third quarter of 2021. The data center campus will consist of two buildings. In the first phase, the first building, which is expected to be ready by mid-2024, will have a built-up area of ​​approximately 325,000 square feet.

Sanjeev Dasgupta, CEO of Ascendas India Trust Trust Manager, said: “Our entry into the data center industry in India will diversify a-iTrust’s portfolio into an attractive and highly scalable asset class. India has the second fastest growing digital economy in the world. The large market size combined with the growing trend towards data localization validates our market entry strategy. “

“Developing our first data center campus with the support of our sponsor, CapitaLand, will allow us to leverage the CapitaLand group’s data center expertise and give us full control over the design and quality of the center. of data. We seek to improve the resilience of our portfolio through diversification into new economic asset classes such as data centers and life sciences. As we grow, we will continue to be prudent in our capital management and agile in seizing investment opportunities, in order to maximize unitholder returns, ”added Dasgupta.

The demand for data centers in India has increased due to improved technological infrastructure and the increasing adoption of new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, cloud and the Internet of Things. These factors are expected to drive India’s total data center capacity expansion at a 31% compound annual growth rate to reach 1,007 MW by 20233.

He Jihong, CEO of the Data Center and Director of Corporate Strategy of the CapitaLand Group, said: “The increasing consumption of data and the demand for quality solutions in India represents a good opportunity for CapitaLand to enter the market. the country’s booming data center market. We are acquiring the site for the development of our first data center in India following the recent acquisition of our first hyperscale data center in China, one of the largest data center markets in the world. We are accelerating our growth in data centers and accelerating the expansion of the Group’s portfolio towards new economy asset classes. With this new development in India, the Group’s investment in data centers this year amounted to approximately $ 1.7 billion. “

“We will continue to develop and leverage our expertise in the design, development and operation of data centers in all regions. We look forward to working with our financial and business partners to expand our data center portfolio in our core markets, ”she added.

The data center campus site that iTrust acquires is located in a prime location along the Thane-Belapur road, easily accessible from Mumbai city via the Eastern Express highway.