NTT launches second Mumbai hyperscale data centre park, plans to launch edge business

This takes NTT’s data centre footprint in the country to 12 facilities, with more than 2.5 million sq. ft. and 220 MW of facility power.

With the impending launch of 5G services and completion of the Myanmar/ Malaysia India Singapore Transit (MIST) submarine cable, the company is also working towards expanding into the edge data centre ecosystem in India through a joint venture, Sharad Sanghi, Managing Director, NTT Ltd. in India, told ET.

The launch comes close on the heels of a new data centre going live in its Chandivali campus, which is India’s first operational hyperscale data centre campus. These are part of the planned $2 billion investment that the company had earmarked in 2020 for scaling its infrastructure capacity to enable it to continue building its One NTT vision.

The new data centre park already has up to 20 clients across hyperscalers, leading Indian banks, payments banks and manufacturing companies. “The number of clients is not as large as some of our earlier data centres but each client has taken much more space. Very few clients have taken less than a floor,” he said.

“With the Mumbai landing station for the MIST cable system, connecting Singapore, Myanmar and India, they will be able to leverage NTT’s infrastructure for global connectivity,” he said.

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He added that large hyperscalers have already expressed interest in leveraging the MIST cable landing station at Mumbai and Chennai which NTT will then distribute across the country through data centre interconnect and edge data centres. As part of its expansion plans, NTT is planning a foray into the edge computing platforms.

“ We will not only set up multiple carrier neutral data centres in tier two cities across the country but also provide neutral internet exchanges and other services within these facilities. We will extend the data centre interconnect to all these facilities and automation capabilities using our own cloud using third party cloud so that people can leverage the facilities better,” said Sanghi.

He added that the company will start with acquiring large land banks across the country and then build smaller data center modules as per demand. Edge data centers are typically smaller facilities located close to the edge of the end-user network. They often connect to a larger central data center or multiple data centres.

“ We’re hiring some senior management as well for that business. And also, we’ve lined up some third-party capital. It will be a JV, just like our Mukand campus in Airoli. We will start construction this year itself,” said Sanghi.

Edge data centers will be essential to the growth and usage of 5G services as well, which is required for Internet of Things (IoT), gaming etc. Ind-Ra estimates that total investment in the data center industry in India to touch Rs 700-720 billion over the next 5-10 years.