Policy for data centers' land, power usage to support industry: CBRE's Anshuman Magazine
data centers
nationwide, according to real estate consulting firm
CBRE
.
'Land is a common challenge for every real estate development, including
data center
s. But the bigger challenge is getting the power to run a data center. So, the state or the city may not have the kind of power required by data centers. That is why hyperscalers and other larger data centers are being established in major cities first,'
Anshuman Magazine
, chairman & CEO (India, Southeast Asia, Middle East & Africa), CBRE, told
ETTelecom
in an interview.
The rapid advancements in cloud, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), and low-latency applications are also causing the data centers to guzzle water to keep the computing infrastructure running at optimum temperatures for sustained performance.
'The data centers also require a lot of water because they generate heat. So it needs cooling. The construction of a data center itself is expensive and the technology, including the racks, as well as prices, have increased,' Magazine said. 'Lately, the power generation in India is improving, and that will enable us to put a larger capacity data center, which will benefit the entire industry.'
Vipin Jain, president (datacenter operations), CtrlS Datacenters, told ETTelecom in a recent interview
that more efforts are needed beyond allotting lands at market rates and waiving stamp duty to support the greenfield data center projects. 'If we have to look at this industry in total, the government should look into whether it can develop data center cities that have ample power. They have to consider the use of unclear power and renewable energy,' he said.
The top executive's comments close on the heels of the
Ministry of Electronics and IT
(
MeitY
) restarting consultations on the draft national
data center policy
to attract investments in this sector,
ET reported in its August 11, 2025, edition
.
The policy, which aims to encourage the establishment of data centers through single-window permissions, streamlining approvals, providing incentives, and setting up four data center economic zones (DCEZs), was announced in 2020 but never implemented.
CBRE estimates India's
data center capacity
to increase from 1.27GW in 2024 to 1.76GW in 2025, with the real estate footprint growing from 19 million square feet to 26 million square feet.
Mumbai (50%), followed by Chennai (17%), Delhi NCR (12%), Bengaluru (9%), and Pune (6%), are expected to be the top data center markets (by capacity) this year, according to the American commercial real estate services and investment firm.
Last year, investors remained bullish and committed nearly $20 billion in data centers, benefitting Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, as per CBRE.
'Mumbai and Chennai are the major data center hubs due to undersea cabling connections. That is why more data centers have come there. Going forward, there will be data centers everywhere. Certainly, parts of South India and western Mumbai will have an advantage,' the executive said.
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