Microsoft Corp unveiled its fourth data centre in India on Monday, betting on rising digital consumption in one of its fastest-growing markets.
Microsoft India head Anant Maheshwari said the company was making long-term investments in the country, although he declined to confirm reports by local media of a $2 billion price tag for the latest centre.
"A public cloud data center is not a one time investment, it is a continuous investment that we have," Maheshwari told Reuters. "In the last two years, we doubled the capacity in the existing three data centers."
The overall Indian public cloud services market is expected to reach $10.8 billion by 2025, according to research firm IDC.
India's government has been nudging foreign tech companies to store more of their data locally, a move seen as New Delhi's attempt to gain stricter oversight of Big Tech firms.
Maheshwari said Microsoft was continuing to grow its workforce in India from 18,000 currently "both through the pandemic and going forward."
"We already serve more than 340,000 companies in the country," Maheshwari said.
The new data centre is located in India's southern state of Telangana.
The company's business model, which relies on partners building additional services on top of its cloud platform, Azure, generated total revenues of about $10 billion in the Indian economy in the last five years, Maheshwari said.
Competitors are joining the race in India. Key rival Amazon announced in late 2020 it would spend $2.8 billion to build its second data centre in the country, while Adani Group last year announced plans to build six data centre parks across the country.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; editing by Jane Wardell)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,
Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.
We, however, have a request.
As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.
Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.
Digital Editor
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU