New Delhi, May 9 (IANS) India’s data centre capacity could grow to 4–8 GW by 2030 and the country has 90 cities suitable for future data centre development, a report has said.

Union MoS Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada launched the report and said that India’s data centre ecosystem is evolving into strategic national infrastructure critical for the country’s technological and economic ambitions.

The rise of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, digital public infrastructure and future technologies such as 6G would significantly increase the importance of data centres in determining where digital value is created and processed, he said.

The report outlined pathways for infrastructure-grade planning, including grid-integrated power provisioning, water-efficient cooling systems and coordinated policy interventions. It also called for moving towards a systems-level approach to digital infrastructure planning while aligning data-centre expansion with sustainability and long-term resilience.

NFPRC Foundation Chairperson Tarun Chugh said data centres are becoming a critical pillar of national infrastructure and instruments of strategic autonomy.

The launch event brought together policymakers, industry leaders, technology experts and researchers to deliberate on the future of India’s digital infrastructure ecosystem.

Chugh highlighted that India’s digital transformation, driven by initiatives such as DigiLocker and digital public infrastructure, requires robust backend infrastructure to support growing digital demand.

He also stressed the importance of coordinated efforts between the Centre and states to create competitive ecosystems for investment and infrastructure development.

Rajya Sabha MP and member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology Sujeet Kumar said that India is rapidly transitioning into a multi-gigawatt data centre economy fuelled by increasing demand from AI workloads, cloud services, financial services and digital public infrastructure.

He noted that data centres are crucial to India’s digital economy as billions of digital transactions are processed annually, with nearly 70 million UPI transactions daily.

—IANS

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