India’s CtrlS says it will invest $2B to expand datacenter business

CtrlS Datacenters, the India-headquartered data center giant, said Thursday it plans to invest $2 billion over the next six years to scale its operations and expand business, as the demand for data processing and cloud storage surges across major markets. 

The Hyderabad-based company said it will invest in technologies and strategies in areas such as advanced cooling, power management and overall infrastructure design in its new hyperscale data centers as a result of a massive surge in AI and cloud adoption. The company said its investment plan includes adding 350MW capacity across new and existing hyperscale and edge data centers in India and some Southeast Asian markets. It already has 12 data centers with 234MW capacity across seven Indian cities, namely Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Noida, Lucknow and Patna.

CtrlS Datacenters has also committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. On that front, it is investing in 153MWp solar projects across three markets that will help generate 250,000MWh energy annually. The company also plans to invest in additional 300MWp projects by 2025. Further, it plans to enhance its water conservation measures by deploying advanced water recycling technologies along with its goal of 100 percent usage of recycled water at all its data centers.

The company also seeks to expand its workforce by over 1,000 new employees in the next six years. It has already included some industry experts, including Royce Thomas (from Equinix) joining as President & Chief Business Officer, Ashish Ahuja (from Google) joining as Chief Technology Officer, Vipin Jain (from AWS) joining as President-Datacenter Operations and Mohit Pande (from Jefferies) joining as Chief Financial Officer.

“Since 2007, we have been committed to innovation and excellence, and the present surge in AI and cloud technologies warrants that we stay relevant to these changing market dynamics, while leading the charter of sustainability,” said Sridhar Pinnapureddy, founder and chairman of CtrlS Datacenters, in a prepared statement. “We aspire to not only bolster our presence across key markets delivering the next generation of datacenter technology, but also to elevate the standard for the entire datacenter industry through pioneering services and sustainable practices.”

CtrlS Datacenters is also looking to expand its data center footprint by launching three new data centers in 2023. The company told TechCrunch that it is working on establishing its new data centers in Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad that are expected to become operational in the next 6–9 months.

In July, CtrlS announced its foray into the Thailand market. It has signed a memorandum of association with Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) to lease the land for its hyperscale data center and entered into a strategic collaboration with the Thai state-owned telecom company National Telecom. It also plans to enter the Middle East market, as it sees significant growth in AI deployments.

India has been a growing market for data centers, as the South Asian nation is seeing tremendous demand for data processing and storage. The country, the second-biggest internet market, already has data centers from all major big tech giants including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. It also has data centers from various local companies and state-owned entities including National Informatics Centre and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is projecting to turn India into a global data center hub over time and is working on bringing a dedicated data center policy to detail regulatory guidelines for new and existing players in the market.