Airtel to invest Rs 600 Cr in the development of the largest data center in East India.
- The 600 Cr ($73 million) Hyper-scale facility will be operational by 2024 & support digital needs of east India and SAARC countries.
- The 25 MW datacenter, the first in Kolkata, will operate on green energy.
Kolkata, November 22, 2022 – Nxtra Data Limited (“Nxtra by Airtel”), a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel (Airtel) started the construction of its new hyper-scale data center in Kolkata. The company will invest Rs 600 Cr (INR) in the development of the largest data center in East India that will serve the underserved markets of east and north-east regions along with the SAARC countries and fulfill the growing needs of enterprises and global cloud players.
The groundbreaking ceremony was graced by Shri Babul Supriyo, Hon’ble Minister for Information Technology, Electronics and Tourism, Government of West Bengal, Shri Debashis Sen, IAS (Retd), Managing Director, West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (WBHIDCO), Shri Rajeev Kumar, Principal Secretary of Information Technology and Electronics department and Mr. Rajesh Tapadia, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer, Nxtra by Airtel.
The 25 MW facility will come up in New Town, Kolkata and will be fully operational by 2024. In line with company’s commitment to environment and its ambition to reach net zero by 2031, the new center will be a green facility, sourcing clean energy for running its operations. Once ready, it will be Nxtra’s 1st large-scale facility in East India in addition to its already existing 12 large and 120 edge facilities across India. The new center will further cement Nxtra’s position as the nation’s largest network of data centers.
“Nxtra and Airtel are delighted to partner West Bengal in its digital-first economy agenda and would like to thank the state government for its unflinching support. The new facility will be one of the largest data centres in East India and will be the gateway to serving customers in and around the eastern region and the SAARC countries. We are investing extensively on Green Energy and our state-of-the-art, carrier-neutral, hyper-scale Kolkata data centre will run on renewable source of energy.
said Rajesh Tapadia, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer, Nxtra by Airtel
Nxtra by Airtel is on an expansion spree and will invest over Rs 5000 cr. over the next four years to expand its capacity by 3X to over 400 MW. The company has already invested and partnered with eight organizations to source more than 180,000 MWh of renewable energy. Nxtra has the ambition to reach net zero by 2031.
Headquartered in India, Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 500 Mn customers in 17 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its networks cover over two billion people.