DLF to invest about Rs 130 cr to develop data centre in Noida

The data centre will be part of a 25-acre commercial project that has total development potential of 35-40 lakh sq ft. DLF has leased built-to-suit data centre project to Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, the sources said.

The total investment to build this data centre is estimated at around Rs 130 crore, they said, adding that the centre would get completed in the next 18 months. When contacted, DLF's Managing Director (Rental Business) Sriram Khattar declined to comment on individual leasing deals, citing clients confidentiality.

DLF spokesperson also refused to comment. Of late, real estate developers are entering into development of data centres to diversify their portfolio.

Data centres are gradually becoming a separate real estate asset class like co-working, co-living and warehousing segments. Recently, Hiranandani Group firm Yotta Infrastructure laid the foundation of a 20-acre data centre park in Greater Noida. It plans to invest Rs 6,000-Rs 7,000 crore in this facility.

Indian data centre industry has attracted investment worth nearly USD 400 million during January-September this year, according to a report by property consultant Anarock and Mace. The data centre industry has attracted close to USD 977 million in private equity and strategic investments since 2008, the report added.

India currently has around 126 third-party data centres (colocation or hyperscale) spanning 7.5+ million sq ft and a cumulative IT power capacity of 590+ MW. While 53 players own/operate these 126 third-party data centres, the capacity is highly concentrated among the top 12 players who operate around 95 per cent of the total IT power capacity in the country, the report highlighted.