There has been a significant increase in the demand for data centres. The Indian data centre market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8 per cent over the forecast period 2021 to 2026. The rapid adoption of cloud-based business operations has encouraged businesses to acquire data management capacities to handle huge volumes of data that are being generated, according to a Mordor Intelligence report.
During the South Asia Digital Week 2022 India edition. Thought leaders came together to discuss the market conditions, innovations and infrastructure challenges faced in the Indian data centre industry in a panel discussion titled ‘Data Centre – Backbone Of The New World Order’. The session was moderated by Jabez Tan, Head of Research, Structure Research. The panelists included Michael Goh, Vice President & General Manager- APAC, IRON Mountain Data Centers, Mayank Srivastava, Chief Development Officer, BDx Data Centres and Vipin Shirsat, Managing Director, India, Princeton Digital Group (PDG).
Speaking of data centre infrastructure challenges, Shirsat focused on those which cannot be solved with capital or something that requires a longer time in India, soon at the core of hyperscale data centres, you’ve got a requirement for robust power and you have a requirement for a reliable network.
Five years back all the data centre service providers were building data centres that were 10-20 megawatts. Now 1500 megawatts will become very common in India, and for the utility to step up to this level, especially when most of the data centers are still in the urban outlets.
It is a difficult challenge, because it is a sensitive installation, adding capacity to the utility substation or connecting the grid from the substation up to the utility is still a challenge that generally takes time, and then adding on some of the local nuances like monsoons, during which it is difficult to get permission or during which for the right reasons.
“The utility will not allow you to charge 100-megawatt transformers and so on. So the end-to-end time that you require to set up a 10 to 20 KB substation in India, including all the approvals. On average can as well go for more than 20 months. So you know, those are the kind of challenges that you will face in India on power,” said Shirsat.
He further explained that whenever someone travels to Mumbai at any given point in time one would see that there is some other construction going on towards Mumbai the number of fiber cuts is generally more frequent and hence the network planning request to be more robust.
“Our first data center in Mumbai is right next to a 400 KV substation so that helped us to put on almost a private line from the data center to our utility substation that is part of Mumbai that easily shaves off a couple of quarters from the overall implementation process. Also on the fiber you need to plan accordingly. I think getting four entry points to a data center or getting three diverse routes to the data center is something that has become very common and I think that problem will be collectively solved, partly by customers, partly by telcos, and partly by service providers like us, where the customers will place the demand,” added Shirsat.
The telcos have started constructing what they call a data center network, which would run through at least three different fiber routes, connecting all the major data centers in the city.
“For people like us what is required is when we build our data centers we make sure that we have an entry point into this data center network, to that extent the last mile fiber that needs to be created, we participate in that process so that when a customer comes to our doorstep on day one to establish connectivity.
“So I think those are some of the key challenges and I think the answer will be incomplete without mentioning that you know there has been a lot of support system, both from the authorities as well as from the industries and the customers to be able to solve these challenges much faster, but just to give you a quick example on the power front, most of the authorities are happy to work with the industry by taking into account the five protection or a seven-year projection in terms of what is going to be our power uptake and accordingly also upgrade the infrastructure that is required to transmit and distribute that kind of power,” explained Shirsat.
There are also initiatives on policy levels to help organisations generate their own capital power which is primary renewable energy, which turns out to be more cost-effective as well while providing your sustainability certificate too. So those are the kind of initiatives that are coming from within the industry and also from the authorities, but he has some of these challenges that remain unique to India, and over a period of time those will get resolved.
Sustainability
When it comes to sustainability there has been tremendous intent as well as action across the country, across all the stakeholders. The government had set itself a target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2020. That accounts for 404 to 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
“When it comes to customers, most of our customers are hyperscales or large enterprises that have their own sustainability goals. In fact, we have set up a target of a hundred per cent green data centre by 2030 and we also recognise the importance and responsibility that comes with it and are actively working towards it,” said Shirsat.
He further explained that the industry is going to make sure that the PUEs have reduced from what used to be 1.8 to 2 and are now coming down to 1.4 to 1.6. There is an equipment level KPI, even when their organisation does its factory testing for a UPS they try to see what is the efficiency of the UPS at a 10 per cent loading or 15 per cent loading.
“We are conscious about the amount of water that we consume and the amount of green cover that we provide within the data center. Talking about the investment I think it’s a huge opportunity for the investors as well because currently we have around 150 to 200 gigawatts of capacity as a country and this is beyond data centers I’m talking about reaching 500 gigawatts of capacity that’s upwards of $200 billion of investment opportunity. So I think all of these things put together, that there’s an entire ecosystem around sustainability that is developing, but it doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of this ecosystem primarily because we are larger users of power,” added Shirsat.
Also, the government is helping by creating policies that can enable people to have captive renewable energy production, which is cost-effective and reliable.