The data centre boom in Chennai is leading to a higher demand for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. The trend is expected to continue, industry officials say.
A data centre is a place to store and compute data. According to JLL Research, the data centre industry has a capacity of 499 megawatts, of which Mumbai accounts for 225 MW, followed by Chennai with 62 megawatts.
JLL Research expects the data centre industry’s capacity to double to 1,008 MW by 2023. Mumbai and Chennai are expected to be at an advantage to harness the further growth mainly because of the cable ecosystem in these cities.
“The Indian data centre market is witnessing a rapid growth, driven by the digital revolution and the 5G rollout. The infrastructure status for the data centre industry will further augment this growth. This growth means an increased demand for uninterrupted power,” said Satpal Singh, CEO, Numeric, a UPS manufacturer.
He said the evolution of data centres is primarily driven by hyper- scale/large colocation data centre service providers who are giving cloud space to enterprises, and also the edge data centres which are closer to users for last-mile computing. Mr. Singh said huge hyper-scale data centres are being set up in Tier 1 cities, while edge centres are getting built in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Both need a wide range of UPS.
“The digitization of business and manufacturing processes requires big data solutions, which necessitate data centres, and hence the demand for UPS solutions,” said Sachin Bhalla, vice-president-secure power, Schneider Electric India and SAARC.
“With UPS being an essential component in the functioning of data centres, we foresee an immense potential for the UPS business in the coming years. In terms of capacity-wise use, we expect the power needs of the data centres to touch the 447-MW mark by 2027. Going by this huge growth, we can imagine the future potential of UPS and other non-IT infrastructure that allow the smooth functioning of data centres,” he added.
Sify has a hyper-scale data centre in Chennai. Banks, financial services and insurance and retail companies are key clients looking for colocation in Chennai. “Chennai is an important cable- landing station for international traffic connectivity. Hence, most data centre players are selecting Chennai for low latency network connectivity. In the next 2-3 years, we will observe about 200 MW-250 MW installation of data centres in Chennai,” said Girish Dhavale, chief technical officer-data centre services, Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd.
Power is the main raw material for data centres. Also, data centre performance is measured with uptime which is proportional to grid power availability and UPS is the key factor or decision- maker for data centre growth in Chennai, he pointed out.
NTT Ltd. has a data centre operational in Chennai.
“We have seen demand from all internet-centric services such as banking, manufacturing, government, education and health, which are moving towards the cloud-based delivery model, apart from hyper-scalers, OTTs and media. To serve our clients in the region, our new six-acre data centre campus is going to be live within the next few months. Further, the under-construction MIST sea cable is also going to be operationalised by the middle of 2023, and that will significantly ramp up the data centre operations in Tamil Nadu,” said Vimal Kaw, Head, DC, NTT Ltd. in India.
“The data centre business necessitates high uptime and that is where UPS is of utmost importance for us. Every single instance of downtime at a data centre can entail a significant cost, and we have integrated robust power backup systems at all our facilities,” he added.
