Jumping into the turf of Adani Group, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance has announced a joint venture with Canadian company Brookfield to launch a data centre in Chennai next week, the billionaire announced on Sunday.
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Mukesh Ambani, while speaking at the Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet, announced that Reliance is making major investments in renewable energy and green hydrogen, a sector majorly dominated by Gautam Adani’s firms.
During the investors meeting, Ambani said, “Reliance has partnered with Canada’s Brookfield asset management and US-based Digital Reality to set up a state-of-the-art data centre, which will be opened next week.”
While Ambani is just now venturing into this space, Adani Group and Bharti Airtel have already made major strides when it comes to setting up and funding data centres.
Reliance vs Adani vs Airtel for data centres
Last year, Reliance had invested ₹378 crore to enter a venture where Brookfield and Digital Reality were already partners, to open a data centre in Chennai.
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Now, all three firms own 33 per cent each of the venture. Through this venture, Reliance will launch a 20 megawatt greenfield data centre in Chennai, reported Times of India.
However, the Adani Group has already made a major impact in the data centre industry through a 50:50 joint venture between Adani Enterprises and EdgeConneX (ECX). The two firms raised $213 million for its data centre in Chennai, with the Adani firm aiming at becoming one of the top three data processing companies by 2030.
Bharti Airtel’s data centre company Nxtra is also making strides, with plans to purchase 23,000 MWh of renewable energy by the fourth quarter of FY24. Nxtra is currently on path to be the top data processing company of India, due to its volume.
Why telecom companies are expanding via data centres
Growing technological advancements and digitalisation in India is the prime reason why big conglomerates are looking to expand their bases in data centres. Further, the rollout of 5G spectrum for internet providers is also expected the boost the demand for data centres in India.
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Indian companies are also competing with firms like Google, Amazon and Microsoft in this space, as the latter have already starting setting up data centres in the country. A report by Avendus Capital said that the data centre market in India is expected to grow 40 percent in a year and reach $5 billion in investments by 2025.
