Mumbai 25 August 2026: India‘s data centre industry has evolved rapidly beyond the ‘niche technology segment’ tag and is now a major real estate and infrastructure play. As the country generates and consumes gargantuan volumes of data, these factories are expanding proportionately.
Anarock Capital‘s latest report “Data Centre: The Blueprint of The Digital Fortress in India” projects India‘s data centre footprint to touch over 101 Mn sq ft by 2030 as the sector scales up to meet the country’s accelerating digital requirements. From a modest 0.6 Mn sq ft in 2007, it has reached nearly 27 Mn sq ft by H1 2026. USD 300+ Bn in investment commitments will drive the upcoming supply.
Shobhit Agarwal, CEO – Anarock Capital, says, “The projected 101 Mn sq ft data centre footprint highlights the sheer physical scale of the real estate opportunity. Unlike conventional office or industrial developments, data centres are highly infrastructure-intensive assets, requiring large land parcels, substantial power capacity, advanced cooling systems, robust connectivity, and high levels of operational resilience.”
“This projected footprint doesn’t represent just additional built-up space requirements – this is a specialised asset class at the intersection of real estate, technology and infrastructure” he adds. “As operators expand their portfolios, demand for strategically located land, power infrastructure, renewable energy, engineering and construction services, fibre connectivity and specialised cooling solutions will rise in tandem.”
Accelerating Capacity Growth
The report highlights that DC capacity is following a similar growth trajectory. From less than 1 GW only a few years ago, India has crossed 1.8+ GW as of H1 2026. The development pipeline is expected to boost capacity to over 6.7 GW by the end of the decade – a more than threefold increase in the next four years.
Supporting this rapid build-out are over USD 300 Bn in investment commitments. This positions India among the fastest-growing data centre markets globally, with growth estimated at 2–3x the global average.
“The massive scale of investment commitments demonstrates the long-term confidence surrounding the sector, and its strategic importance to the digital economy,” says Agarwal. “It also reflects the convergence of multiple structural demand drivers – including cloud adoption, rising data consumption, artificial intelligence (AI), digital payments, enterprise digitalisation and the growing need for secure and resilient digital infrastructure.”
In comparison, global DC capacity crossed 92+ GW in H1 2026 and is projected to touch 210+ GW by 2030-end – with overall investment commitments of USD 3,000 Bn by the first half that year.
Data Centres – City Ranking
Mumbai-MMR remains India’s dominant data centre hub thanks to its outsized financial and commercial ecosystem, strong enterprise demand, and connectivity advantages. However, the DC market is increasingly expanding across other major digital and business centres, including Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad. These cities are also attracting significant investments.
- Mumbai-MMR has 54 operational data centres with IT capacity of 812 MW, followed by Chennai with 25 DCs of 298 MW capacity.
- Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru have 18 centres each with IT capacities of 179 MW and 137 MW, respectively.
- Hyderabad has 12 DCs with IT capacity of 178 MW.
The emergence of these clusters is based squarely on land and power availability, network connectivity, renewable energy access, and proximity to major demand centres. This geographical diversification also opens new opportunities for real estate development beyond established data centre hubs.
AI to Reshape Data Centre Requirements
The rapid adoption of AI is one of the most important drivers of current and future data centre demand. AI will directly impact the design and engineering requirements of the next generation of facilities.
“AI’s explosive growth adds another powerful dimension to this opportunity,” says Agarwal. “AI models require far more computing power, storage capacity and energy than conventional digital applications. As businesses, governments and consumers adopt AI at scale, data centres are evolving from digital activity support to critical infrastructure driving economic growth and technological competitiveness.”
Policy and Financing
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 further emphasises the importance of secure domestic data infrastructure, supporting the broader requirement for robust and compliant data management capabilities.
The infrastructure status accorded to data centres has also helped improve access to long tenure financing at interest rates of around 9.5-10.5%, for tenures extending up to 12 years. The proposed tax holiday through 2047 for eligible global cloud service providers further enhances India’s competitiveness.
India’s DC Growth Provisos
The report highlights that the next phase will be defined by power, land, and connectivity. With the projected footprint and capacity growth, and the investment commitments supporting the broader ecosystem, India’s data centre market must scale up at an extraordinary rate.
The challenge of ensuring that supporting infrastructure keeps pace with this expansion cannot be under-estimated. Reliable power, suitable land, high-speed connectivity and access to renewable energy will determine where the next generation of data centre capacity can be developed.
India’s data centre opportunity is not just about significant real estate and investment potential – it will eventually reshape land-use patterns, infrastructure investments and the entire commercial real estate landscape across India’s leading digital markets.