_Noida - Emerging Data Center Hub

The Indian data center industry is witnessing meteoric growth. A large and still growing internet userbase, the explosion of data, and the creation of a conducive atmosphere via the government’s Digital India mission have transformed India into a fast-growing data center hub.

Anand Patil April 06, 2022

Why is Noida emerging as a Data Center hub?

Around 3-4 years back, we started interactions with several data centre players, and we looked at the entire Delhi NCR market to identify the right sites for setting up data centres. Noida emerged as a clear winner as the land zoning is very well defined and physical infrastructure like access roads, metro and optical fibre are well developed. Another factor is the availability of power which is a major requirement for data centres.

Infrastructure support for Data Centers in Noida?

Noida has surplus power and the authorities have been very proactive in developing and upgrading the power infrastructure which is a very critical element for all data centres. Further, the UP government after assessing the demand came by with a data centre policy in early 2021 which is very well drafted as it takes care of all the key concerns faced by data centre operators with regard to building zoning and approvals. It has created a building code for data centres that did not exist earlier and was extremely critical as data centre buildings are different from regular IT buildings with regards to floor-to-ceiling height, floor loading capacity, parking, and power infrastructure requirements. This has helped improve the design efficiency for data centres and delivery time for data centre operators.

What are the advantages of Noida?

Noida has certain key advantages like well-zoned land, clear demarcated plots, well-developed road and drainage infrastructure and supportive government policies. Secondly, UP has abundant power to meet the demands of data centres and the government has been very proactive in developing the power infrastructure.

Further, the policy also gives benefits such as power subsidies and other relaxation on-ground coverage, car parking etc. Besides, Noida also scored well on other studies undertaken by data centre operators which included factors like flood risk, earthquake and environment, health, and safety assessments.

Data Center potential in the region?

Geographically, Noida will act as the entry to North India and serve customers not only in the Delhi/NCR region but also in the states of UP, Punjab and Haryana. We feel the current activity in the data centers is the tip of the iceberg and the location has the potential to become one of the major data centre hubs in India.