Navi Mumbai gets greenfield 300 MW hyperscale facility
Digital Edge (Singapore) Holdings, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) of India and Singapore-based AGP DC InvestCo Pte Ltd have entered into a partnership to develop a pan-India portfolio of hyperscale data centres.
The facilities will operate under the brand name Digital Edge DC and intend to support the country’s ongoing digital transformation and provide much needed capacity to the rapid growth of India’s cloud industry.
The partnership’s first project is a greenfield 300 MW hyperscale facility in Navi Mumbai, which is the country’s biggest data centre hub offering easy access to infrastructure, including power and fiber connectivity.
The facility will be one of the largest data centres in India and is designed to cater to hyperscale deployments, leveraging Digital Edge’s cutting-edge engineering architecture to achieve market leading PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness).
Construction of the 47-acre site will commence in early 2023 and the facility will be built in multiple phases. Upon completion, the data centre will be fully operated by and marketed by Digital Edge DC.
“This partnership with NIIF and AGP marks Digital Edge’s entry into the Indian market, growing its platform to six countries across Asia,” said the partners in a statement on 5 Jan 2023.
NIIF, led by the Indian Government, will leverage its local and operational expertise in developing platforms as well as its strong infrastructure investment experience, and AGP, a sustainable-focused real assets manager, will bring on-the-ground real estate development and construction experience.
The partnership aims to source power for its portfolio of data centres predominantly from renewable energy sources, drawing on a partner’s renewable energy development capabilities.
According to IDC, India’s public cloud services market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.1% for the period 2020-2025, driven largely by the accelerated adoption of digital transformation initiatives, the roll out of 5G telecom services across the country and the expected transition to hybrid work following the COVID-19 pandemic.
This combined with India’s significant population, which is also the highest data consumer in the world, is further fuelling demand for the local data centre industry which, according to Structure Research, is expected to grow to 1,073MW of IT load capacity by 2026.
“This project is another key milestone in our ongoing growth journey and adds breadth and depth to our regional platform which now spans 16 data centres across six Asian markets,” said Samuel Lee, Chief Executive Officer at Digital Edge.
“NIIF and AGP bring solid local know-how to our data center expertise, making a strong combination when it comes to executing the project at speed and to international standards.
“Our mission is to build the foundation for the world’s digital future and we are excited to enter this dynamic market and contribute to India’s incredible digital transformation,” said Lee.
“We believe that this is an opportune time for Digital Edge to enter the market in Navi Mumbai,” added Andrew Thomas, Senior Managing Director at Stonepeak of New York which provides capital, operational support and committed partnership to target sectors, including communications, energy transition, transport and logistics, and social infrastructure.
“Critical data centre infrastructure has a long runway for growth in the country as India’s digital economy continues to rapidly expand.
“We have been excited to partner with the Digital Edge team since the platform’s inception in 2020 and, in NIIF and AGP, we have found ideal partners to expand into India,” he said.
“The platform resonates with NIIF’s investment philosophy of developing infrastructure at scale and partnering with large, credible, well-governed companies that want to expand into India,” elaborated Vinod Giri, Managing Partner of the NIIF’s infrastructure fund.
“Through this platform, NIIF aims to play a key role in building quality digital infrastructure to support the Indian Government vision to transform the country into a global data center and cloud computing hub.
“We are excited to partner with highly capable and experienced industry partners, Digital Edge and AGP, who have a track record of delivering similar large-scale projects across other countries in the region.”
“AGP is excited to be partnering with Digital Edge and NIIF for the build out of this new Indian data centre platform,” added Ben Salmon, Founding Partner of AGP.
“The collaboration of skill sets between the partners positions us well to support the much-needed expansion of India’s critical digital infrastructure and deliver to the high standards of hyperscale customers.”
Singapore-headquartered Digital Edge brings new colocation and interconnect options to the Asian market, making infrastructure deployment in the region easy, efficient and economical. The company provides data center and fiber services across Asia, with a presence in China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
Headquartered in Singapore with offices in the UK, Europe, US, India and Australia, AGP currently has 5,000MW generation capacity under development and 22m sq. ft of built space developed or under development.
Headquartered in New York with offices in Austin, Hong Kong, Houston, London and Sydney, Stonepeak is a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real assets with approximately US$53.4 billion of assets under management. fiinews.com
