PDG plans to expand to other Indian cities; invest about $300M in each location

Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group (PDG), which recently opened a data centre in Navi Mumbai with an investment of $300 million, is exploring opportunities to expand its footprints to other Indian cities.

Last week, PDG unveiled a data centre in Navi Mumbai with 48 MW capacity in two buildings spread over a 6-acre.

India's current operating capacity of data centres is over 650 MW.

"India is a key market for us, and with our Navi Mumbai data centre becoming operational, we are exploring to expand to (other) cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune. Each of these data centres will be of 48 MW capacity with over $300 million investment," PDG Managing Director, India, Vipin Shirsat told PTI, without disclosing the timeline.

The company is investing in a renewable energy plant in Maharashtra, which will fulfil 40% power requirements of the data centre with minimal water consumption.

"An additional 200 KW of the solar power plant will be installed within the data centre campus in Navi Mumbai," he added.

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At present, in the Navi Mumbai facility, 4 MW capacity is operational and another 10 MW will be added in the next calendar year and the additional 24 MW capacity is expected to be operational by 2024, Shirsat said.

"We have invested in a solar power plant in a remote location in Maharashtra, which will fulfil the 40% power requirement of our data centre in Navi Mumbai. This 200 KW solar power plant will begin power supply to our data centre by mid next calendar year," he stated.

As data centres require niche talents, PDG is also planning to collaborate with local technology institutions to introduce a syllabus that will help the company in hiring, in line with its partnership with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

PDG has partnered with CBRE and Facebook to focus on the development of data centre professionals, working with Nanyang Technological University in contributing and driving content and syllabus aimed at the right skilling as well as for the growing data centre industry, Shirsat said.

"We are still in the process of developing the syllabus for India," he added.

For the data centre in India, the company mainly targets banks, and global hyper scalers, including large cloud service providers, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), MNCs, and ecommerce players, among others.

PDG intends to solve regulatory, infrastructural and cultural challenges for its target audience in India.

He also noted that the approval time is very lengthy in the country, and it would be a big help to companies like PDG if the government makes the processes easier to set up data centres in India.

PDG, backed by Warburg Pincus, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) and Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala), has a presence in five countries, with a portfolio of 20 data centres and 600 MW capacity.