L&T’s ₹2,000 crore data centre at Sriperumbudur will soon be ready for commissioning. The testing phase is nearing completion, according to a senior company official. The company will soon join other majors like Adani, Airtel and STT Global to house their data centres in Chennai.

P Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations, L&T, while discussing the company’s Q2 financial results, recently told analysts that a 12 MW data centre in Chennai is nearing completion of its testing phase and is expected to be commissioned shortly. “We have plans of scaling up the data centre in Chennai to 30 MW in the near term,” he said.

In November 2021, L&T signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu government to establish a data centre at Kanchipuram. As per the MoU, L&T would establish a 90 MW capacity data centre and associated units in a phased manner in Kanchipuram over the next five years. The company envisages to employ around 1,100 people (600 direct and 500 indirect) as part of the project.

The largest construction company in India will establish the hyperscale data centre to provide comprehensive solutions and end-to-end data centre services, with multi-cloud cybersecurity services, digital transformation integration services and application integration services.

The State government will provide uninterrupted power supply and other infrastructure support on a best-effort basis that will bring tangible economic and social benefits to the people of Tamil Nadu, a company release said.

Future projects

Ramakrishnan said that besides Chennai, the company is also looking to set up data centres at Mahape, Navi Mumbai, and Whitefield, Bangalore, in the near to medium term. “We are also evaluating multiple other opportunities currently and will share the details once the plans are finalised with respect to this business,” he said.

The 2 MW data centre in Panvel is under integrated testing and is expected to be commissioned in the current quarter, he said.

Major hub

Chennai is making its mark as a major hub for data centres and emerging as the second largest data centre hub in the country.

A report by Savills India said that the IT capacity as of H1 2024 was around 942 MW, which has grown at a CAGR of 22 per cent from 158 MW in 2014, spread across Mumbai (54.9 per cent), Chennai (12.3 per cent), Delhi-NCR(11.5 per cent), Bengaluru (8.2 per cent) and Pune (7.2 per cent). Of the total stock as of H1 2024, stock dedicated for hyperscalers accounted for 22 per cent.

Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO, India, Southeast Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE, said several factors drive Chennai’s emergence as a major data centre hub. The city boasts a robust IT infrastructure, a skilled workforce and a supportive government ecosystem. Its moderate climate ensures optimal operating conditions for data centres, reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs.

Additionally, Chennai’s strategic location and connectivity to major international fibre optic cables provide robust network connectivity, essential for data centre operations. The Tamil Nadu government’s initiatives, such as tax incentives and infrastructure development, further bolster the city’s attractiveness as a data centre destination, said Magazine.

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