Chennai emerging as data centre hub with TN signing MoUs worth Rs 1,900 crore

CHENNAI: The city is emerging as a data centre hub with the Tamil Nadu government signing Memoranda of Understanding with Singapore-based CapitaL and WebWerks in the presence of Chief Minister MK Stalin for Rs 1900 crore for setting up two data centers in Ambattur at the investment conclave on Tuesday.

This comes as Guidance has signed MOUs with nine companies to set up data centres in Tamil Nadu with a total proposed investment of Rs 16,927 crore and employment potential of over 9,000  jobs over the last two years. National and international companies including Yotta, Princeton Digital, ST Telemedia, Netmagic and Adaniare are in the process of setting up their data centers in Chennai.

According to official sources, Ambattur is the preferred choice for data centre companies owing to its favourable geographical conditions and existing data centre ecosystem. Siruseri is the next ideal destination due to the presence of several IT companies, which offers a great market opportunity.

It is learnt that Guidance is also in discussions with the world’s largest data centre companies and leading technology companies, which are in the advanced stage of setting up data centres in Chennai.

According to a release, Guidance and Information Technology  Department are working together on a TN Data  Centre Policy to strengthen the ecosystem for data centre companies in Tamil Nadu. The most common requirements of data centres pertaining to housing regulations and power are being worked upon to encourage data centre investments and further downstream investments.

Tamil Nadu has six submarine data cables with a bandwidth of 14.8 Tbps (The highest in the country). The rural areas in Tamil Nadu are also well connected with more than  12,524  village panchayats with a minimum scalable bandwidth of 1 Gbps. As per TRAI, Chennai is among the top five service areas in India for broadband subscriptions.