Blackstone Group, one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world, is planning to invest as much as US$ 6 billion in India to build data centers in Mumbai. For this it has signed two separate agreements on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that concluded recently at Davos.
The first is a US$ 3 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), and the second is also a MoU worth US$ 3 billion, this time with the City & Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) to develop data centers in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Blackstone is already developing two data centers in Navi Mumbai, the projects reportedly worth US$ 300 million.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis led a delegation that reportedly ended up securing pledges for investments worth Rs 15.70 lakh crore spread across a variety of sectors including technology, real estate, infrastructure, green energy, manufacturing and more.
Readers would recall the US$ 8.3 billion MoU the Maharashtra government signed with Amazon Web Service (AWS) at the same forum.
Blackstone has been present in India since 2005, and has been making huge investments in real estate, dabbling in office spaces and logistics. Apart from the latest investment announcement pertaining to data center development, Blackstone also plans to invest US$ 5 billion into Mumbai 3.0. This is a sister city project that the Maharashtra government has planned to decongest Mumbai, much like what it had done when it developed Navi Mumbai in the 1980s. Mumbai 3.0 will span Karnala-Sai-Chirner New Town (KSC New Town) and will see development of new infrastructure, residential, and commercial spaces.
