With demands and competitors increasing for digital services, the financial capital has registered the highest addition of data centre capacity in the entire Asia Pacific region in the quarter ending Q1 2021, boosted by the continuing pandemic-driven lockdowns, says an industry report.
Mumbai reported sharpest increase with 56 mega watts (mw) in the January-March quarter, taking the total supply to 753 mw, a report by international property consultants Knight Frank said on Tuesday.
Between 2016 and 2019, Mumbai’s IT power capacity (the industry word for data centre) rose from 148 mw to 456 mw, the report published in partnership with data centre research and analytics platform DC Byte said.
But Mumbai’s has only 162 mw of live supply and 23 mw under-construction capacity. The report attributed the record addition in Q1 to the pandemic driven push for digital services which began in 2020 when the city added 252 mw to to 697 mw over 2019 supply.
The report said while the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) markets saw a demand growth of 4 per cent in Q1 of 2021 to 120 mw, the supply grew 10 per cent, totalling to over 180 mw.
In Asia Pacific markets, total supply increased by about 200 mw in Q1, to total supply of 5,800 mw across the region, reflecting a similar supply growth in seen in 2020 when total addition was over 800 mw for the full year.
“Mumbai is amongst the better-established data centre hubs in the APAC region. The city’s location has a strategic importance as a landing destination for undersea data-cables connecting the East and West. The presence of an established telecom industry and the push for digital services during the pandemic has further fuelled the growth of data centres in the megapolis,” Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director at Knight Frank India said.
With respect to the Mumbai data centre market composition, colocation wholesales comprised the largest chunk with 126.68 mw, accounting for 73 per cent of the overall market while colocation retailers commanded the supply of 31.42 mw registering 18 per cent of the overall supply. Telecoms commanded 8 per cent, and financial institutions just 1 per cent of the supply, with 14 mw and 2.5 mw respectively.
Cloud companies are continuing to develop a substantial network in Mumbai, leading to the creation of multiple new hyper-wholesale colocation facilities.
The report covers 28 key markets closely tracking the significant pandemic-driven data usage shift in 2020, which in turn magnified the traditional buy cycle and led to record developments in the global data centres market.
