Latest news with #Sify
Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Sify's Indian data-center unit plans $500 million IPO
Sify Technologies Ltd.'s data-center unit is preparing to submit a preliminary filing with the Indian regulator for an initial public offering that may fetch $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd. plans to file a so-called draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in the coming weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. The company, backed by Kotak Private Equity Group , is considering the sale of new and existing shares for the offering, which would value it at about $3 billion, they said. Deliberations are ongoing and the plan may change, they said. Demand for data center s has been on the rise with the expansion of artificial intelligence, and India is no exception. The country's data center capacity is poised to grow by 77% to 1.8 gigawatts in the next four years, according to a 2025 report by property consultant JLL. Sify Infinit is one of India's data-center pioneers, commissioning its first facility in 2000. It operates 14 data centers across India, offering about 188 megawatts of power, according to the company's annual report. The company has raised 16 billion rupees ($182 million) in two rounds from Kotak's Special Situations Fund and Kotak Data Center Fund through compulsory convertible debentures, according to rating agency ICRA Ltd. Kotak Mahindra Capital Co., Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citic Securities Co. and JM Financial Ltd. have been appointed as bookrunners for the IPO, the people said. Representatives for Sify and the banks didn't respond to requests for comment. Sify would be joining a growing list of companies tapping into the IPO market. Since January, Indian IPOs have raised over $8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Jefferies Financial Group estimates that Indian companies will raise $18 billion in the second half of 2025.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Sify's Indian data-center unit plans $500 million IPO
Sify Technologies Ltd.'s data-center unit is preparing to submit a preliminary filing with the Indian regulator for an initial public offering that may fetch $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd. plans to file a so-called draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in the coming weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. The company, backed by Kotak Private Equity Group , is considering the sale of new and existing shares for the offering, which would value it at about $3 billion, they said. Productivity Tool Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide By Metla Sudha Sekhar View Program Finance Introduction to Technical Analysis & Candlestick Theory By Dinesh Nagpal View Program Finance Financial Literacy i e Lets Crack the Billionaire Code By CA Rahul Gupta View Program Digital Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Neil Patel By Neil Patel View Program Finance Technical Analysis Demystified- A Complete Guide to Trading By Kunal Patel View Program Productivity Tool Excel Essentials to Expert: Your Complete Guide By Study at home View Program Artificial Intelligence AI For Business Professionals Batch 2 By Ansh Mehra View Program Deliberations are ongoing and the plan may change, they said. Demand for data centers has been on the rise with the expansion of artificial intelligence, and India is no exception. The country's data center capacity is poised to grow by 77% to 1.8 gigawatts in the next four years, according to a 2025 report by property consultant JLL. Sify Infinit is one of India's data-center pioneers, commissioning its first facility in 2000. It operates 14 data centers across India, offering about 188 megawatts of power, according to the company's annual report. Live Events The company has raised 16 billion rupees ($182 million) in two rounds from Kotak's Special Situations Fund and Kotak Data Center Fund through compulsory convertible debentures, according to rating agency ICRA Ltd. Kotak Mahindra Capital Co., Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citic Securities Co. and JM Financial Ltd. have been appointed as bookrunners for the IPO, the people said. Representatives for Sify and the banks didn't respond to requests for comment. Sify would be joining a growing list of companies tapping into the IPO market. Since January, Indian IPOs have raised over $8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Jefferies Financial Group estimates that Indian companies will raise $18 billion in the second half of 2025.
NDTV
30-07-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Andhra Pradesh, Google Sign $6 Billion Worth Major Data Centre Deal: Sources
Andhra Pradesh has closed a major data centre deal with global tech giant Google and leading Indian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) service provider Sify. These agreements, totalling $7.9 billion in investment and contributing 1.55 gigawatts (GW) to the state's data processing capacity, a source in the Andhra Pradesh government told NDTV. Google is set to invest a staggering $6 billion in a 1 GW data centre in Andhra Pradesh. Sources indicate that this massive facility will be located in the port city of Visakhapatnam. Notably, $2 billion of this investment is earmarked for developing renewable energy capacity to power the centre, aligning with the growing global demand for sustainable digital infrastructure. This project alone is expected to be the largest in Asia, both in terms of capacity and investment. Complementing this, the Andhra Pradesh cabinet, in its meeting last week, officially approved a substantial data centre project with Sify. This initiative involves an investment of approximately $1.9 billion for a 550 MW data centre facility. Andhra Pradesh has worked on attracting IT and technology-related businesses, particularly through its recently launched IT & Global Capability Centres (GCC) Policy (4.0) for 2024-2029. This policy offers a range of incentives, including capital subsidies, rental assistance, power incentives, and tailor-made packages for mega-projects, aiming to bridge infrastructure gaps and foster a hybrid work ecosystem. Andhra Pradesh's Minister for IT, Electronics, and Education, Nara Lokesh, has been a vocal proponent of the state's data centre ambitions. He recently said that Andhra Pradesh has already finalised investments for data centres totalling 1.6 GW and aims to build an ambitious 6 GW of data centre capacity over the next five years from its current near-zero base. Mr Lokesh also said that there were plans to establish three new cable landing stations in Visakhapatnam, further positioning the city as a crucial digital gateway for India and Southeast Asia, potentially rivalling existing hubs like Mumbai. A key highlight of these investments, particularly the Google project, is the emphasis on renewable energy. The state government has actively promoted the development of green energy solutions to power these energy-intensive facilities, envisioning most of the required 10 GW power generation capacity over the next five years to come from green sources. Beyond these investments, the data centres are expected to be major job creators, offering a wide range of opportunities in technology, operations, and support services. The state's focus on skill development initiatives, including the "Future Skills Credit Scheme," aims to ensure a ready and skilled workforce for these emerging industries.
Hans India
24-07-2025
- Business
- Hans India
SIPB approves Rs. 20,000-croreinvestments
Vijayawada: The coalition government's commitment to generate 20 lakh jobs over five years is steadily bearing fruit. IT Minister Nara Lokesh, Chairman of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Employment Generation, continues to make significant strides in attracting investments alongside his cabinet colleagues. In a major development, four prominent companies have come forward to invest in Andhra Pradesh. During the 9th State Investment Promotion Board chaired by the Chief Minister at the Secretariat on Wednesday, investment proposals of renowned firms such as Sify, Sattva, BVM, and ANSR, totaling ₹20,216 crore, were approved and these investments are projected to create 50,600 employment and livelihood opportunities. On this occasion, Lokesh, in his capacity as Chairman of the Employment Generation Sub-Committee, shared his insights into the proposed investments. He stated that the entry of such prestigious companies would significantly enhance Visakhapatnam's standing. He elaborated on the discussions held with these firms and highlighted their respective strengths. Following this, the Chief Minister emphasized the need to align Visakhapatnam's Master Plan with future investments and developmental needs. He reaffirmed that the available land in the region was limited and had been allotted to several companies, including the ArcelorMittal Steel Plant. He stressed the urgency of identifying suitable land for incoming companies and directed officials to undertake proactive planning to avoid infrastructure bottlenecks. When officials highlighted urban challenges faced by cities such as Pune and Bengaluru, the Chief Minister asserted that such issues must be avoided in Visakhapatnam. He underscored the importance of forward-looking planning, particularly for airport and rail connectivity, highways, and Metro networks, so that Visakhapatnam could avoid the urban strains seen elsewhere. While setting up industrial units, it was essential to establish ecosystems that catered also to the needs of residents. Comprehensive planning must ensure that these areas were livable and well-equipped for the general public, he added. To date, 113 projects amounting to ₹5,94,454 crore in investments have been approved under the alliance government's tenure through SIPB meetings. These include 46 projects in the industrial sector, 41 in energy, 11 in tourism, 11 in IT, and four in food processing. Collectively, these ventures are expected to generate 5,56,568 employment and livelihood opportunities.
New Indian Express
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
I helped save MAMI in 2014. Its 2025 death fills me with rage.
Picture a tiny, five-foot-something woman from Assam, battling gravity and loneliness in Mumbai, trudging religiously to the Mumbai Film Festival (affectionately called MAMI) every single year. Her dream? To become a filmmaker. With no other path visible, she endures endless queues and back-breaking theatre seats, absorbing the craft of masters whose visions flickered to life exactly as intended: on a big, forty-foot screen. Years later, her own film premieres on that screen. I was there, capturing her tears as they fell. That woman was Rima Das. That film, born in a remote corner of Northeast India that few outsiders had been to, was Village Rockstars, and it travelled the world. That is the power of MAMI – Mumbai's only global-scale film festival. I tell Rima's story because I witnessed it first-hand, having helped her become the filmmaker she deserved to be. But her story isn't unique. It echoes Nagraj Manjule's story. His debut, the brilliant Fandry, received its first public screening at MAMI. I saw the mist in his eyes too after a thunderous five-minute standing ovation – cut short only by the cruel clock. Even he confessed that MAMI wasn't just a festival for him: it was his film school. Chaitanya Tamhane (Court, The Disciple) and Anand Gandhi (Ship Of Theseus) walked similar dreams born on MAMI screens. Countless others, perhaps less heralded but no less devoted, kept returning. For them, MAMI was Varanasi, Jerusalem, Mecca, Kaaba – a shifting pilgrimage defined by whichever theatre hosted the magic that year. That's why, in 2014, when Shyam Benegal (then festival Chairman and whose office I was working in) and Director Srinivasan Narayanan told me the festival was shutting down – its sponsor vanished, funds zero – I snapped. I unleashed an angry rant on My editor, Sarita Ravindranath, wisely titled it: 'Mumbai's Rs Five Crore Shame: Who will fund a film festival' (The article is now lost behind a server with only a ghost in its original link). The rest, as the cliché screams, is history. Manish Mundra was the first to step in, with what became, along with Anand Mahindra, the most generous cheques of that year. Then came Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. A lot of other filmmakers: I remember Hansal Mehta and Anurag Kashyap, who spread the word. And crucially, hundreds of Mumbaikars donated thousands, even lakhs. My friend Sanika Prabhu's mother donated one lakh rupees, despite knowing she wouldn't even be able to attend. In a rare, beautiful surge of collective will, they saved the institution that would later nurture the likes of Rima Das. Don't mistake this for nostalgia. Or vanity. My clickbait title aside, I claim no credit for "saving" MAMI. I was a messenger; the film fraternity's collective zeal was the saviour. No, I write this now because I am obscenely, incandescently angry. Why? Let me quote my own snarky beginning from that 2014 Sify piece, now scrubbed from the internet: 'It seems like the much-awaited yearly art bonanza, the 16-year-old Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI to most and MFF to some) will not see the light of the projector this year. The reason is as old as civilisation – lack of a few pennies. Ok, a lot of pennies. Obviously, the much-fabled large-heartedness of Mumbai, home to 26 billionaires (ranked 6th in the world) and 2,700 multi-millionaires, where 100 crore films have become a norm of sorts, has failed to find the pennies needed to make up 5 crores (less than 1 million USD) to run the festival.' What's changed in eleven years? Mumbai's billionaire count quadrupled (92 in 2024, surpassing Beijing!). It boasts nearly 60,000 millionaires. ₹100 crore films are passé; ₹1000 crore is the new fantasy, even if Bollywood rarely hits it. Back then, I spared no one: 'As for the Government of Maharashtra (which 'supported' MFF by giving a princely sum of Rs. 10 lakh every year) and Government of India (which believes it can serve one sixth of the world's population by financing a huge total of exactly one film festival every year), the less said the better.' I demanded: 'How do you value it? How do you value art? How do you value that which promotes art and culture? How do you judge its importance in the life of a city, nation and world?' I railed against the custodians of wealth: 'O you custodians of money with brand consciousness and PR skills, your sham CSRs and blind PR activities, your money rotting and stinking in Swiss banks, you who understand the price of everything but the value of nothing, you who equate everything to profit and loss who try to draw the map of the human heart over balance sheets… how can anyone show you what a film festival means to the life and breath of a metropolis you yourself reside in.' Do you see it? Change the dates, update the billionaire count, and this same article could run today. Nothing has fundamentally changed. Festival Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur calls the 2025 miss '..revamping the festival with a dynamic vision,' – a dishonest euphemism for bankruptcy. But is there hope? I remember Mr. Narayanan's grim warning in 2014: a hiatus is a death knell. Reputation shatters. If you couldn't raise funds this year, what hope is there later? So, this is farewell. And you know what? Good riddance. Not because the festival was bad (though, let's be honest, its management was often terrible – but at least we saw the films properly). I say good riddance because we, Mumbai, we, this nation, do not deserve it. We don't deserve the pregnant hush before a masterpiece. We don't deserve luminous visions exploding across forty-foot screens. We deserve the cheap, disposable dopamine hits of Instagram Reels we endlessly, mindlessly scroll – our sensitivity eroded, our empathy drowned in the algorithmic deluge of dead pixels. In 2014, thousands cared enough to fund it. Today? The people are still here, but their hearts have been calloused by the relentless, AI-curated numbness. Blame will fall on Mukesh Ambani. Whispers cite his displeasure with the last edition for withdrawing funding. Critics will note the cost of Rolexes gifted at his family wedding could fund MAMI for years. But I refuse that bitterness. Let's acknowledge the positive: he funded it generously for a decade. I've heard it's over ₹15 crores annually. That's significant. We should appreciate that. But the burning, desperate question remains: Where did all that money go? The festival's quality didn't soar under the new post-2014 management (who, let's note, abandoned ship the moment the funding stopped). If anything, it frayed. For years, I've watched young volunteers scurry out for cheap dhaba lunches near the theatres – gone were the days when even journalists like me were sometimes fed cheap, plastic-packed lunches at the festival. Mukesh Ambani gave over ₹150 crores in a decade. In the pre-2015 MAMI, this would have funded the festival for three decades. But it could only fund ten now? I have no answers. Only scalding questions. A furnace of anger. A choking desperation. And so, with a bitter symmetry that tastes like ashes, I end with the same words I wrote in 2014, believing it was truly over then:'The world won't come to an end if a film festival in a small corner of the world does not exist anymore. Yet, many things of value will die with it. Mumbai would die just a little bit more with the death of the Mumbai Film Festival. And so will something in the heart of each and every Mumbaikar. And all for the want of a few pennies we couldn't find in our pockets.' Back then, Mumbai did find those hundreds of millions of pennies. It saved MAMI till Mr. Ambani funded it for a decade. Can it rally again in 2025? Eleven years older, eleven years wearier, eleven years number? I no longer have hope. Only rage. And a profound, aching grief for the dreams of another Rima Das, another Nagraj Manjule, who will now never find their screen, their light, their tears captured for eternity.
