5G with IoT to unlock Indian biz potential: NTT

NEW DELHI: The 5G roll-out in India has generated a lot of interest among enterprises and the combination of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G will herald a new era of domestic businesses in the next couple of years, Avinash Joshi, CEO, NTT India, said on Tuesday.

“5G is something we leapfrogged from 4G as a natural course, but the scale India is going to see this time will be humongous,” he said.

As the 5G roll-out begins for the masses, the Indian enterprises are also keen to have their own 5G private networks to ensure agility and scalability in the data age, Joshi said.

“5G will co-exist with Wi-Fi 6 and other technologies, especially IoT, for a myriad of sectors like manufacturing. 5G brings low latency, extra security and ultra reliability for smart manufacturing,” said Joshi.

The whole area of IoT is promising as more and more companies are looking at leveraging IoT for a variety of business cases.

“I think the combination of IoT and 5G will really give Indian companies a competitive edge,” he said.

Joshi joined NTT after being with IBM for more than 18 years. In his last role, he was the senior partner and VP, 5G, APAC, IBM Services.

As part of NTT DATA, a $30 billion IT services provider, NTT Ltd. is a leading IT infrastructure and services company serving 65 per cent of the Fortune Global 500 and more than 75 per cent of the Fortune Global 100.

On the journey towards a software-defined future, it supports organisations with its platform-delivered infrastructure services.

According to Joshi, India is at the cusp of the data centre revolution.

The company has already committed to invest $2 billion towards building data centres in India.

“We are number 1 in India with around 80 per cent market share. NTT has 12 operational data centres in the country and we are building 6 more. We will double the current megawatts capacity in India in the next 12 months,” Joshi said.

Buoyed by the growing demand, over 45 data centres spanning 13 million square feet and 1,015 MW of IT capacity are planned to come up in India by 2025, according to a ANAROCK-Binswanger report.

Altogether, there will be 183 data centres in the country with 24 million square feet and 1,752 MW of total IT capacity by 2025-end.

In terms of IT capacity (nearly 1,015 MW), over 69 per cent of this planned new supply will come up in Mumbai and Chennai, with 51 per cent in Mumbai alone, the report had mentioned.

Currently, there are 138 data centres across India spanning 11 million square feet and having 737 MW of IT capacity (building ready).

“India is a key market for us. We are building data centres here and will keep building more to help enterprises unlock their true potential,” said Joshi.