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Digital Realty opens datacentre in Chennai
Datacentre developed through joint venture will support high-density power requirements and tap Jio’s connectivity infrastructure across India
Digital Realty has launched its MAA10 datacentre in Chennai, in a bid to tap the growing opportunities in India’s fast-growing datacentre market.
Developed by Digital Connexion, a joint venture between Digital Realty, Brookfield Infrastructure and Indian telco Jio, the facility will offer 20MW of IT load on a datacentre campus capable of providing 100MW of capacity.
Reliance Industries, the parent company of Jio, had reportedly invested about Rs 378 crore (US$45.6m) into Digital Connexion, with Reliance, Brookfield and Digital Realty each owning an equal stake in the venture.
MAA10 features a modular infrastructure design, enabling customers to scale infrastructure as needed to accommodate diverse workload demands, from single-cabinet to multi-megawatt requirements.
The facility is ready to support emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), offering standardised and bespoke configurations to meet the high-density power requirements of up to 70 kilowatts per rack, suitable cooling infrastructure and interconnectivity demands of AI workloads.
Digital Realty said the Chennai datacentre, which will leverage Jio’s digital and connectivity infrastructure across India, is a vital addition to its global datacentre platform that hosts customers, partners, cloud and network service providers with a footprint of over 300 facilities in more than 25 countries.
Later this year, the datacentre will also let customers configure and provision connectivity on-demand across their digital infrastructure to fit their needs.
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Serene Nah, managing director and head of Asia-Pacific at Digital Realty, said that with a population of 1.4 billion and a growing focus on the delivery of digital services, India represents a key market opportunity for Digital Realty, and its partners and customers.
“We believe MAA10’s next-generation datacentre infrastructure and Digital Realty’s connected global open datacentre platform will provide the foundational pillars our customers need to innovate and tap into this thriving market,” she added.
MAA10’s campus is located in Ambattur, a northwestern neighbourhood in Chennai that has the necessary power supply and a high number of submarine cable landing stations, according to CB Velayuthan, CEO of Digital Connexion.
Velayuthan noted the Tamil Nadu state government’s aspirations to make Chennai the top datacentre destination in India, and said it looks forward to “making this campus a destination of choice for customers, partners, cloud and service providers looking to expand their reach in India”.
Besides Chennai, Digital Connexion is planning a 40MW datacentre in India’s commercial capital of Mumbai. The two sites have been touted as hubs for global connectivity for Indian companies and gateways into India for multinational firms.
According to Mordor Intelligence, India’s datacentre market is expected to grow to $10.9bn by 2028, up 78.7% from $6.1bn in 2023. This is expected to be fuelled by hyperscaler investments, growing fibre coverage, 5G adoption and data localisation policies.
