Web Werks to invest Rs 1,450 crore to set up data centres in south India

Web Werks has signed MoUs with the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to set up data centres in Bengaluru and Chennai with an investment of Rs 1,450 crore. The data centre services provider will also set up a facility in Hyderabad. The data centres will become operational by 2023.

While the Chennai data centre will begin with a capacity of 20 MW, Bengaluru and Hyderabad will begin with 10 MW each. Bengaluru will have a potential of up to 20 MW with expansion possibilities. At present, the Mumbai-based company has a 4 MW facility in Mumbai, 3 MW in Pune and around 1 MW in Noida.

In February, Web Werks inked an agreement with Iron Mountain to form a joint venture under which the US-based firm will invest $150 million (around `1,086 crore). This has allowed Web Werks to grow in its existing markets as well as enter Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.

On expansion in South India, Web Werks CEO, Nikhil Rathi said, “Chennai has the biggest potential after Mumbai due to the cable landing stations, and some domestic consumption. Bengaluru will remain a regional hub for local consumption of IT, etc. Then comes Hyderabad, which is a location for IT and pharma. It is also a nice location for enterprise-class data centres.”

Savills India head (data centre services), Niraj Karale agrees about the potential of the three cities. Chennai will see robust growth due to the presence of hyperscale and few enterprise customers. It will continue to benefit from high-speed connectivity through a submarine cable to strategic markets in APAC like Singapore and Hong Kong.

“Hyderabad is emerging as a go-to-market owing to proposed large scale DC deployments by AWS and Microsoft. It is also an important destination for global tech companies who have their development centres in the city. While Bengaluru being e-commerce as well as a start-up hub, is primarily driven by the demand from retail & enterprise customers,” he added.

In March 2021, Web Werks also announced setting up of a standalone purpose-built greenfield data centre in Navi Mumbai with an estimated investment of Rs 400 crore. It will be spread over 1 lakh sq with 12.5 MW of power and is expected to start operations by mid-2022.

“We are building a hyper scale facility in Mumbai. Work is on for land acquisition. We are also expanding our Pune facility as demand is rising. In Noida also we will expand. All three will expand, but the focus will be on Mumbai as this is where more business is. We are also putting up a small data centre in Kolkata,” Rathi said.

Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/web-werks-to-invest-rs-1450-crore-to-set-up-data-centres-in-south-india/2308221/