Microsoft unveils 4th data centre in India

[NEW DELHI] Microsoft Corp unveiled its 4th data centre in India on Monday, betting on rising digital consumption in one of its fastest-growing markets.

Microsoft India head Anant Maheshwari said the company was making long-term investments in the country, although he declined to confirm reports by local media of a US$2 billion price tag for the latest centre.

He said: "A public cloud data centre is not a one-time investment; it is a continuous investment that we have. In the last 2 years, we doubled the capacity in the existing 3 data centres."

The overall Indian public cloud services market is expected to reach US$10.8 billion by 2025, said research firm IDC.

India's government has been nudging foreign tech companies to store more of their data locally, a move seen as New Delhi's attempt to gain stricter oversight of Big Tech firms.

Maheshwari said Microsoft was continuing to grow its workforce in India from 18,000 currently "both through the pandemic and going forward". "We already serve more than 340,000 companies in the country," he said.

The new data centre is in India's southern state of Telangana.

The company's business model, which relies on partners building additional services on top of its cloud platform, Azure, generated business worth about US$10 billion in the last 5 years, Maheshwari said.

Competitors are joining the race in India. Key rival Amazon announced in late 2020 it would spend US$2.8 billion to build its second data centre in the country, and Adani Group last year announced plans to build 6 data centre parks across the country.

REUTERS