Bangalore is renowned as India’s Silicon Valley, with an estimated GDP of more than US$110 billion. One-third of India’s IT exports come from the city, and its IT and data center infrastructure is secure, intelligent, and scalable.
Banglore’s data centers have played and will continue to play a very important role in uplifting the country’s IT ecosystem. Post COVID-19, India is going through some profound changes in incentivising data centers and is transforming the country’s entrepreneurial setup.
The digital transformation market in India is on its way to hitting the $710.0-billion mark by 2024. In percentage, it amounts to a CAGR of 74 per cent.
By considering this figure, it can be safely said that the services and technology industry in the country is heading towards progress at a brisk pace, an Insights Success report.
The Government of India has also been working on its Digital India initiative over the last few years. The initiative’s primary objective is to promote digital transformation in India and reap its benefits.
For maximum growth in the digital space, India focuses on technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. These technologies are significant because they will shape and drive the growth engine of fintech and other tech companies.
Mahadesha. V, Programme Director, Center for eGovernance, Government of Karnataka shared his insights on the acceleration of digital transformation during W.Media’s Bangalore Cloud and Data Center Convention 2022.
“We are clearly living in the digital ocean. Everyone is connected to each other and interacting majorly on digital platforms,” said Mahadesha.
He further explained how the digital transformation journey has shaped the past two decades.
“Today if we look at tier two and tier three cities I think most of them are using smartphones. Thanks to the telcos for the connectivity because even when the pandemic hit globally. The telcos continued to have a business, they continued to do more than what was expected out of them. The internet revolutionised socio-economic activity globally,” said Mahadesha.
Mahadesha further pointed out that banking, data center and cloud transactions are vital elements for the growth of the economy.
Data centers and cloud have emerged to support the activities behind the traditional computer store and networks. The industry has created technological platforms which have become an integral part of people’s lives.
“Can you ever think of living without the internet, mobile or going back to the era of paper-based transactions? It is important to continue having a sustained digital journey. The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation across the globe, particularly in India which has necessitated investments in cloud and data center businesses in India. According to reports, the valuation of the Indian data center market is valued at $4 billion and this is expected to double in the next five years’ time,” added Mahadesha.
He further pointed out that the increased proliferation of online shopping due to user-friendly interface, high-speed internet and smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and others are expected to drive the market in the future. The ambitious government programmes like digital India and make in India are driving a huge market potential for the cloud and data center players. Apart from focusing on innovation, the creation of new IPs and products is also important.
“When we talk about Karnataka, Karnataka has rolled out ambitious projects. Earlier, citizens had to go to the offices to get their work done. But today it has completely transformed into a digital setting. All in-person interactions have been changed to digital. All work can now be done over the mobile which means that the citizens are not expected to go to the office anymore.
Sevasindhu is one of the best examples of this. It has given a platform to roll out any kind of scheme of the government in less time. For example, if any government wants to provide benefits to the socio-economic level of people they can roll out specific schemes where the citizen can apply for that by putting four to five parameters and then the system will decide if an individual is eligible for that particular scheme. Because the underlying data is already known and the data gets the vital elements across all platforms of different departments.
Therefore, the intelligent platform which is built into the data is going to give visibility for the government in deciding what kind of budget should be allotted to what segment of people. This is one area where the government is working towards creating common data and the data has to flow seamlessly across all departments, “Mahadesha explained.
He further pointed out that data is going to lead the way when it comes to offering common services to the citizens. During the pandemic, the telcos gained a lot of attention and surged in the market, with this the cloud market and the widespread adoption of smartphones have created a digital pull strategy. People from different parts of the country are wanting to use data and services offered by cloud and data centers.
“It is important to think and build data centers consisting of AI and ML to reduce data duplication, enhance the production of data and to give insights regarding the data trends which will enable businesses to take appropriate decisions,” said Mahadesha.
Challenges faced by Data Center and Cloud providers
The cloud and data center providers face a few challenges even today. Building a resilient data center takes the center stage. In the cost-competitive market and competitive services, it is important to have profits and legitimate data during digital transactions.
“Data privacy, data localisation, data immutability, business continuity options to achieve almost near zero RPO for all business-critical applications. Reducing the total cost of ownership and improving performance and adopting the latest technologies is also important in the current times.
The global competitive environment, supply chain and changing climatic conditions are a plethora of challenges that would be faced by everyone in the cloud and data center market. It is important to start thinking innovatively to build data centers not from a point of infrastructure but innovation-led services,” said Mahadesha.
He further pointed out that the data center and cloud providers have to think of building multi-tenant data centers including hyperscales and edge data centers in order to bring real-time experience to consumers. In potential areas like telemedicine, OTT, digital learning platforms, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, IoT, or any other emerging or emerging technologies.
There has been an increase in the number of trends seen in building micro services-based applications not only confined alone to the corporations but also the government is also thinking of modernisation using the platforms which will enable companies to develop and deploy applications including continuous monitoring and maintenance.
“I personally foresee that the world is shifting towards PaaS and SaaS. There will be opportunities for the companies to leverage on PaaS and build applications quickly and deploy those as a product to offer that as a service. Going forward industry, government or the citizens will not want to buy the product. It is going to be a complete service segment,” added Mahadesha.
Data center and cloud is not usable unless the public is connected to reliable and high-speed internet. The role of the telcos is equally important in propelling the data center and cloud business in highly critical applications especially connecting the rural side of India and also bridging the gap between the haves and have-nots.
5G Services
India is also looking to roll out 5G services at the earliest. Today when data centers and cloud computing are being built, it is important to think about harnessing new technologies that include liquid cooling, AI/ML, IoT, cloud-native applications in order to bring optimisation to services and enhance security.
“It is also important to think about how we can maintain the data center and cloud services in order to provide a seamless and uninterrupted service and it is important to give a seamless experience to the consumers,” Mahadesha concluded.
