Nxtra opens new hyperscale data centre in Chennai

Nxtra by Airtel, the data centre subsidiary of Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), today launched its new hyperscale data centre park in Chennai. The state-of-the-art facility was unveiled digitally by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Thiru. M.K. Stalin

This will be the company’s third large data centre in Chennai. The 38 MW LEED-certified facility is spread over 270,000 sq.ft. A key highlight of Airtel’s new data centre is that it is fully integrated with Airtel’s global submarine cable network, thereby, providing an end-to-end secure connectivity solution to hyperscalers, Nxtra claims. 

Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business said: “This is a major milestone in our journey as we scale up aggressively to serve the emerging digital India opportunity. Chennai, with its strategic location and access to cable landing stations, has the potential to become a regional data centre hub for South Asia. 

“Nxtra by Airtel is already serving large Indian and global customers from the city and we will continue to invest to expand our operations here. I compliment the State Government for providing an enabling environment and infrastructure support to set up this vital digital infrastructure,” Chitkara added.

With the latest launch, Nxtra by Airtel has further consolidated its leadership in the Indian data centre industry. It now operates the largest network of data centres in India with 11 hyperscale and 120 edge data centres and manages critical submarine landing stations.

India witnesses strong demand for reliable data centre solutions 

With 5G on the horizon, as well as a fast-growing digital economy and enterprises transitioning to cloud and local data storage regulations, India is witnessing strong demand for reliable data centre solutions. The Indian data centre industry is expected more than double its installed capacity from an approximate 450 MW to 1074 MW by 2023. 

To serve this large demand, Nxtra by Airtel will invest Rs 5000 crores by 2025 to increase its capacity by 3X to over 400 MW. This will include setting up hyperscale data centre parks in key metro cities. Nxtra by Airtel is already scaling up the use of green energy for its data centres and aims to source 50% of the power requirements of these centres through renewable sources as part of Airtel’s overall GHG emission reduction targets.