New Delhi, March 13 (IANS) India’s data centre industry is witnessing steady growth, with the country’s total capacity rising from around 375 MW in 2020 to nearly 1,500 MW by 2025, the Parliament was informed on Friday.

In a written response to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister Jitin Prasada said that to support artificial intelligence (AI) development, about 38,231 GPUs have been onboarded through 14 empanelled service providers and data centres under the AI compute capacity framework.

These computing resources are being provided to startups, researchers, academic institutions and other eligible users at a subsidised average rate of Rs 65 per hour, which is roughly one-third of the global average cost, he added.

The data centres are located across key technology hubs in the country, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Noida and Jamnagar.

The minister said the government is aware of the infrastructure requirements of the growing data centre ecosystem, including electricity and water.

According to the Ministry of Power, electricity demand from data centres is projected to reach 13.56 GW by 2031-32 as the sector expands alongside AI and other large-scale computing applications.

India’s national transmission infrastructure is being continuously expanded to meet rising electricity demand and ensure reliable power supply across regions, he added.

The recently enacted Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act is also expected to support reliable power solutions for emerging sectors such as AI and data centres by enabling future deployment of small modular and micro nuclear reactors.

Prasada noted that water consumption in data centres varies depending on the cooling technologies used.

Groundwater extraction for industrial use, including for data centres, is regulated under guidelines issued by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, according to him.

To minimise water usage, the industry is increasingly adopting advanced cooling technologies such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling, adiabatic cooling and immersion cooling.

Companies are also deploying high-density racks to efficiently support high-performance computing and AI workloads while reducing overall power and water consumption, the minister said.

–IANS

ag/na