With the Covid-19 pandemic pushing more online activity and the capacity usage of data centres going up, India’s largest data centre (DC) building and the biggest tier-IV data centre, Yotta NM1,the  second largest in the world, has been launched in Mumbai.

The launch event on Tuesday saw virtual participation of Ravi Shankar Prasad, union minister for communications, electronics and information technology, law and justice, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Subhash Desai, minister of industries and mining, Maharashtra.

The Yotta NM1 is spread over 18 acres and located at 600-acre Hiranandani Fortune City township in Panvel with proximity to Mumbai and Pune. It is certified by Uptime Institute in Asia. It is the first of the five data center buildings coming up at the integrated Yotta Data Center Park which, once fully built, will have an overall capacity of 30,000 racks and 250 MW power.

With 820,000 sqft area, 7,200 racks, 50 MW of power and 4 redundant self-owned fiber paths connecting the DC to national highways, Yotta NM1 will offer a highly scalable data centre infrastructure capable of hosting global cloud, content and OTT operators besides the mission-critical applications of enterprises and governments. For this the group has invested Rs 1,000 crore.

The ultramodern building is supported by a highly redundant on-site power infrastructure and will be powered by its own captive solar power plant and an on-site captive gas-based co-gen power plant. As per the company, these put together will create efficiency-plus data centres with operating costs estimated to reduce by 20 percent. The group plans to spend Rs 3,500 crore in data center business across Navi Mumbai and Chennai in immediate future. 

Yotta Infrastructure, a 100% group subsidiary of real estate developer Hiranandani Group, is a managed data centre service provider which will offer hyper-density, hyper-scalable data centre and co-location solutions to enterprises with supporting managed IT, hybrid multi cloud and security services. It will provide an array of services like wholesale colo, retail colo, hybrid multi-cloud, IT management, security services, network connectivity and more on a pay as you use model providing value to its customers without burdening them with bloated bills.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown and work from home (WFH) has multiplied digital and online transactions which reflect in incremental demand at data centers, be it to power collaborative tools like Zoom; usage of enterprise tools like SAP or net banking, as also on the consumer side, OTT platforms for entertainment like Netflix, Hotstar etc. There is a 30 percent hike in data centre capacity usage and even after the situation returns to ‘normal’, the work style will continue to be data centre driven, and demand growth will continue,” said Niranjan Hiranandani, MD and co-founder, Hiranandani Group.
 
“As enterprises and government agencies now focus more than ever before on self-reliance (‘Atmanirbhar’) in their supply chains within the country, this has lead to more emphasis on data privacy/protection and consequently on data localisation. The demand for hyper-scale data centers is on the rise thanks to governments push for the national e-commerce policy and proposed policy on data center parks. Also with the new normal established due to COVID reliance on technology from enterprises and consumers has increased. All these factors together make for a tremendous growth story for data centers in India,” he added.

“What makes the Yotta story unique is the Hiranandani Group’s ownership of all key input resources, massive economies of scale with our land banks, captive green energy generation and distribution capabilities and unmatched expertise and experience in data centre domain including design, engineering, construction and operations,” Hiranandani noted.

“This data centre is a global pioneer not just in terms of capability and price but more so in terms of its focus on efficiency and sustainability. We provide the most efficient power offering available in the market today, not just the lowest price of power but also power usage efficiency that is a global benchmark for the tropics,” said Darshan Hiranandani, group CEO, Hiranandani Group.

Data centres are a ‘sunrise’ segment in Indian commercial real estate with potential to grow at a fast pace. Sectors such as BFSI, logistics, transportation, e-commerce, media and entertainment and government agencies are driving high demand for data centres.