Is India a good data centre market, and what are the risks?
Last updated
India produces nearly 20% of the world's data but hosts about 3% of its data centres (Jun 2025). Most 2026 forecasts see India reaching 4 to 6 GW of capacity by 2029-2030. The risks include slow grid connections and unbuilt plans: 76% of future commitments are early-stage (Cushman & Wakefield, 2026).
Key facts
India produces nearly 20% of the world's data but hosts about 3% of its data centres by count.
As of Jun 2025. Economic Survey 2025-26 (citing Nasscom, World Bank)
About 1.6 to 1.8 GW of data centre capacity is live in India, roughly 1.6 to 1.7% of global capacity by MW (FlexiCloud estimate against about 103 GW worldwide).
As of 2025-26 (India mid-2026; global base 2025). JLL; Cushman & Wakefield
Cushman & Wakefield and Invest India forecast 5.65 GW by end-2030 if every planned project is delivered on time; JLL forecasts 6 GW by 2029.
As of Oct 2026 (Cushman & Wakefield); Aug 2026 (JLL). Cushman & Wakefield and Invest India; JLL
Mobile data traffic reached 285,376 PB in FY2025-26, up 24.7% in a year, with 28.4 GB a month per data subscriber in Apr to Jun 2026.
As of FY2025-26; Apr to Jun 2026. TRAI
76% of indicative future data centre commitments are early-stage or land-banked, so announced capacity is not the same as supply.
As of 2026. Cushman & Wakefield
Rupee to dollar conversions use ₹95.25 per US$ (FBIL reference rate, 13 Oct 2026).
Terms used on this page (7)
- Neocloud
- A cloud company built mainly to rent out GPU compute for AI, as opposed to a general-purpose hyperscaler.
- Hyperscaler
- The largest cloud providers: AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and similar.
- Energisation, sanctioned load
- Energisation is when the utility actually switches power on. Sanctioned load is the maximum power it has approved for the connection.
- DPDP, significant data fiduciary
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and its 2025 Rules, India's privacy law. A significant data fiduciary is a large or sensitive data handler the government designates for extra duties.
- FY (Indian financial year)
- April to March. FY2026-27 runs from 1 Apr 2026 to 31 Mar 2027.
- H1, H2
- The first half (January to June) and second half (July to December) of a calendar year.
- Lakh, crore
- 1 lakh is 100,000 and 1 crore is 10 million. ₹1 lakh crore is ₹1 trillion, about US$10.5bn at ₹95.25 per US$.
The case for India: numbers, forecasts and risks
India produces a large share of the world's data but hosts a small share of its data centres. Demand is real, the largest cloud providers are investing to meet it, and policy now pushes more workloads to stay in India.
The risks are real too: power connections, water, land, unsettled rules and a crowded pipeline of announcements.
What this means for a GPU cloud
India is likely to be one of the fastest-growing data centre markets this decade. For GPU clouds the near-term constraint is not demand. It is power-ready, liquid-cooled space on a date you can rely on.
The case in numbers
| Indicator | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| India's share of world data vs data centres | Nearly 20% of data (Nasscom estimate) vs about 3% of data centres by count | Jun 2025 | Economic Survey 2025-26 (citing Nasscom, World Bank) |
| India's share of global capacity by MW | About 1.6 to 1.7% (our estimate: 1.6 to 1.8 GW vs about 103 GW worldwide) | 2025-26 | JLL; Cushman & Wakefield |
| Internet subscriptions | 1.11 billion incl. about 99 million machine (M2M) connections; about 1.01 billion without M2M | 30 Jun 2026 | TRAI |
| Rural internet | 49 subscriptions per 100 people, vs 129 in cities | 30 Jun 2026 | TRAI |
| Mobile data per user | 28.4 GB a month per data subscriber | Apr to Jun 2026 | TRAI |
| Mobile data traffic | 285,376 PB in FY2025-26, up 24.7% in a year | FY2025-26 | TRAI |
| Mobile data price | ₹7.13 (US$0.075) operator revenue per GB | Apr to Jun 2026 | TRAI |
| UPI payments | About 24.5 billion in one month | Aug 2026 | PIB, cited by Cushman & Wakefield / Invest India |
| Aadhaar enrolments | 1.45 billion | 14 Oct 2026 | UIDAI |
| Global Capability Centres | 1,700+ centres employing 1.9 million people | FY2024 | Nasscom-Zinnov |
| Clean power | 53% of installed capacity is non-fossil | FY2026 | CEA and MNRE, cited by Cushman & Wakefield |
| Power shortage | 0.03% of energy demand not met | FY2025-26 | CEA, cited by Cushman & Wakefield |
| Build cost | US$7.4m per MW (about ₹70 crore), vs Malaysia US$9.6m and USA US$15.2m | 2026 | Cushman & Wakefield cost guides |
| Pre-leased capacity | About 1.15 GW, roughly double the earlier level; hyperscalers took over 80% of demand | 2026 | Cushman & Wakefield APAC Investment Landscape 2026, via Invest India |
Forecasts for India's capacity
| Source | Starting point | Forecast | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| CareEdge Ratings (Mar 2026) | 1.2 GW (2025) | About 4 GW by FY2030 | Rating agency view |
| Economic Survey 2025-26, Ch. 9 | 1,280 MW (Jun 2025) | About 4 GW by 2030 | Uses the same dataset as Cushman & Wakefield H1 2025 |
| Cushman & Wakefield + Invest India (Oct 2026) | 1,789 MW (H1 2026) | 5.65 GW by end-2030 | Assumes every planned project is delivered on time |
| JLL (Aug 2026) | 1.6 GW (mid-2026) | 6 GW by 2029 | Needs about US$110bn of investment |
| Economic Survey 2025-26, Ch. 7 (citing S&P) | About 1.4 GW (Q2 2025) | About 8 GW by 2030 | Higher-growth view |
| Cushman & Wakefield, AI acceleration case | 1,789 MW | About 8 GW by end-2030 | Illustrative scenario |
| Wood Mackenzie (Jul 2026) | 2.2 GW (2025) | 12 GW by 2030 | Outlier; different definition |
The spread comes mainly from whether early-stage and land-banked projects are counted. Cushman & Wakefield says 76% of indicative future commitments are early-stage or land-banked.
Risks, and what a GPU cloud can do about them
| Risk | Evidence | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Grid connection and energisation delays | National supply is not the same as site-level substation capacity (Cushman & Wakefield, Oct 2026). The Economic Survey models a 12-quarter lag to add grid capacity | Lease only halls with sanctioned and energised power, or get contractual energisation dates with penalties |
| Power cost depends on category and open access | Maharashtra commercial tariffs are about 54% above industrial (MERC, FY2026-27) | Confirm the tariff category in writing; compare delivered ₹ per kWh |
| Water stress | The Economic Survey names water as a binding constraint for AI data centres | Ask for closed-loop liquid cooling and treated-water sourcing; avoid groundwater-dependent sites |
| Unsettled rules | DPDP duties phase in to May 2027; Parliament passed amendments to the 2047 data centre tax exemption on 10 Aug 2026, but we could not confirm presidential assent or rules; Cushman & Wakefield still cited a 2020 draft national DC policy in Oct 2026 | Keep Indian personal data in India from day one; take Indian legal and tax advice before relying on incentives |
| Vacancy and price pressure | Colocation vacancy is 22 to 28% in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune (H1 2026). IndiaAI subsidised GPU-hours averaged ₹65 (US$0.68) in Mar 2026 | Negotiate rent and flexibility; sell what the subsidy does not cover: dedicated clusters, SLAs, newer GPUs |
| Older halls not built for AI density | Demand is shifting to high-density AI halls; older Hyderabad and Pune stock sees weak enterprise demand (Cushman & Wakefield) | Confirm kW per rack, liquid cooling and floor loading before signing |
| Announcements vs delivery | 76% of future commitments are early-stage; several campuses slipped a year or more | Underwrite on ready-for-service dates backed by construction progress |
| GPU supply, export rules, finance | The Economic Survey models finance as the first bottleneck and GPU supply as the main one after that | Secure GPU allocation before committing to power; stage capacity |
| Concentration and route risk | Cables land mainly in Mumbai and Chennai; most westbound routes cross the Red Sea | Buy at least one eastbound path; consider a second site in Chennai |
| Currency | The rupee moved from about ₹85.8 (Jun 2025) to ₹95.3 (Oct 2026) per US$ (ECB) | Match currencies of costs and revenue where possible; hedge INR receivables |
Power tariffs by state are compared on the power, build and rent costs page; cable routes and repair times are on the subsea cables page, and carriers and latency on the connectivity page. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Sources for this section (14)
- Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey 2025-26, Chapter 7 (Services). Jan 2026
- Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey 2025-26, Chapter 9 (Infrastructure). Jan 2026
- Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey 2025-26, Chapter 14 (AI ecosystem). Jan 2026
- TRAI. Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators, Apr to Jun 2026. 12 Oct 2026
- TRAI. Yearly Performance Indicators 2025-26. 5 Oct 2026
- Cushman & Wakefield and Invest India. India's Data Centre Growth Story. 13 Oct 2026
- Cushman & Wakefield and Invest India. Power Infrastructure for Data Centres in India and the Transition to Green Energy. 6 Oct 2026
- MNRE. Physical progress: installed renewable capacity. 30 Sept 2026
- UIDAI. Aadhaar dashboard counters. 14 Oct 2026
- Nasscom. India GCC Landscape Report: The 5 Year Journey. Sept 2024
- NBM&CW (CareEdge Ratings). India's data centre capacity to grow 4x to about 4 GW by 2030. 25 Mar 2026
- IANS (Wood Mackenzie). India's data centre capacity likely to surge to 12 GW by 2030. 27 Jul 2026
- Cushman & Wakefield. India Data Centre Market Overview H1 2025 (city rents and pipeline). 2025
- PIB / MeitY. Data centre capacity rose from about 375 MW in 2020 to around 1,500 MW by 2025. 13 Mar 2026
Why India: outlook and risks
Frequently asked questions
India produces nearly 20% of the world's data but hosts about 3% of its data centres by count (Economic Survey 2025-26, citing Nasscom and the World Bank, Jun 2025). Demand keeps rising: India had 1.11 billion internet subscriptions on 30 Jun 2026, including about 99 million machine connections, and mobile data traffic grew 24.7% in FY2025-26 (TRAI). Building is also cheaper than in many markets, at about US$7.4m per MW against US$9.6m in Malaysia and US$15.2m in the USA (Cushman & Wakefield, 2026).
Most forecasts land between 4 and 6 GW by 2029-2030, up from about 1.6 to 1.8 GW live in mid-2026. CareEdge Ratings sees about 4 GW by FY2030 (Mar 2026), JLL 6 GW by 2029 (Aug 2026), and Cushman & Wakefield with Invest India 5.65 GW by end-2030 if every planned project is delivered on time (Oct 2026). AI-heavy scenarios reach about 8 GW; Wood Mackenzie's 12 GW (Jul 2026) is an outlier that uses a different definition. The spread comes mostly from whether early-stage and land-banked projects are counted.
Getting grid power connected on time, water, unsettled rules, and announcements that are not yet built: Cushman & Wakefield says 76% of indicative future commitments are early-stage or land-banked (2026). Older halls may not suit AI density, and the rupee moved from about ₹85.8 (Jun 2025) to ₹95.3 (Oct 2026) per US dollar (ECB). The Economic Survey 2025-26 also models finance as the first bottleneck and GPU supply as the main one after that.
At national level, largely yes: only 0.03% of energy demand went unmet in FY2025-26 (CEA), and 53% of installed capacity was non-fossil in FY2026 (CEA and MNRE). The problem is at the site: national supply is not the same as substation capacity at a given campus (Cushman & Wakefield, Oct 2026), and the Economic Survey 2025-26 models a 12-quarter lag to add grid capacity. Lease only halls with sanctioned and energised power, or get contractual energisation dates with penalties.
Not fully, as of October 2026. Most duties under the DPDP Rules (India's privacy law, notified Nov 2025) start on 13 May 2027, and Parliament passed amendments to the 2047 data centre tax exemption on 10 Aug 2026, but we could not confirm presidential assent or rules. Cushman & Wakefield still cited a 2020 draft national data centre policy in Oct 2026. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; take Indian legal and tax advice before relying on any incentive.
FlexiCloud DC advisory
Planning capacity in India?
Weighing India for a GPU cloud or data centre project? FlexiCloud's DC advisory helps you check sites, power-ready dates and lease terms against these risks before you sign.
More from the India data centre guide
Hyperscaler investment
Amazon, Microsoft and Google have pledged more than US$56bn for AI and cloud in India, mostly for 2026 to 2030 (Oct 2026). See each pledge, what is already live, who else is investing and why.
Power, build and rent costs
Grid power in India is mid-priced, building is cheap and colocation rent is low by global standards. See FY2026-27 state power tariffs, build cost per MW and city colocation rents, set against Singapore, Europe, the US and other Asian markets.
Neocloud entry guide
Entry models from colocation to build-to-suit, the Indian and US rules that apply (CERT-In, DPDP, export controls), IndiaAI reference GPU prices, verified state incentives and a 14-point checklist. Also why the 2047 tax exemption probably does not fit a neocloud that owns its GPUs.
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