Reliance Jio is planning to set up a Data Centre in Uttar Pradesh with an investment of $950 million.

According to a Hindustan Times report, this Data Centre will be spread across a 20 acre land. The report cited two people who were aware of the development.

“This is an important focus area for the telecom giant of India, Reliance Jio,” one of the two people who cited the above information cited the publication.

“For the data center a 20 acre land has been allotted to the company and the project is approximately of Rs 7,000 crore,” said Sidharth Nath Singh, who heads the ministers of investment and export, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and textile in the UP government, said in a statement in response to a media query.

This comes amidst the Indian government’s plan of making India a Digital economy of $ 1 trillion by 2025.

“The center will consist of six interconnected data center buildings offering 30,000 racks capacity and 200 MW of power. It is expected to create thousands of job opportunities in the Information Technology sector.” Singh added in the statement.

However, Jio has not confirmed any such development.

The new center could be powered by Reliance Jio’s own renewable energy plant.

The Uttar Pradesh Government had earlier come up with a Data Centre policy. This policy is expected to bring in an investment of 20,000 crore. The policy also aims at developing 250 MW of Data Centre industries in the state.

Singaporean data center group, ST Telemedia Global Data Centers (STT GDC), is backing the project. The proposed data center campus will cost an estimated Rs 600 crore, and will have a critical IT capacity of 18 Megawatts (MW) in its first phase.

As for the second phase of the investment, Alok Kumar, Chief Secretary of IT and Industrial Development at STT GDC in India added that a land parcel of around three acres has been identified by the investor, which means that IT capacity would be increased to 36 MW in phase two. This will be an additional estimated investment of Rs 500 crore.

A significant growth in the Data Centre market was witnessed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. With everyone working from home there was a massive increase in the consumption of the internet.

Using renewable energy for Data Centers will lead to a reduction in the carbon footprints and will prove to be sustainable and safe for the environment.