Nxtra by Airtel, the data center subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, has announced plans to increase its footprint in tier 2 and tier 3 cities such as Lucknow, Sambalpur, and Ludhiana. Nxtra is aiming to capture a greater share of India's growing data center market, and Nxtra, as a subsidiary, has the advantage of Airtel, India's leading telecommunications service provider.
Also Read: Nxtra by Airtel Starts Construction of Its Largest Data Center in Kolkata
With the surge in data consumption and as clients want to be in closer proximity to their users, Nxtra is planning to ramp up its investments in these cities over the next one to two years, according to a report by ET Telecom. In addition, consumer-led businesses such as banks and OTT players like to be closer to the customers, and tier-2 and tier-3 cities become attractive locations.
Nxtra would come up with seven Data Centre facilities in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi to double its capacity from the current 200MW to 400MW by 2025. Additionally, Nxtra's new 85MW data center in Mumbai, which is set to launch later this year, will serve as the landing station for two new subsea cables, namely SEA-ME-WE-6 and 2Africa Pearl.
Also Read: Airtel Partners With Meta and STC to Bring 2Africa Pearls to India
In Lucknow, construction has started, and Sambalpur is coming up. Airtel is also looking at Ludhiana and Patna; some of these investments will happen in the coming 1-2 years, the COO was quoted as saying in the report.
According to market research firm Arizton quoted by the Report, the India data centre market will jump to USD 10.09 billion in 2027 from USD 4.35 billion in 2021.
Net-zero Target by 2031
Nxtra Data has recently partnered with Bloom Energy to deploy low environmental impact fuel cell installation at its data center in Karnataka, reducing carbon emissions through a cleaner, hydrogen-ready fuel supply. With this, Nxtra becomes India's first data center company to deploy fuel cell technology to reduce carbon emissions at its data centers. Airtel Nxtra has set the target to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2031.
Nxtra by Airtel has the largest network of data centers in India, with 12 large and 120 edge data centers across the country with a total of 200MW power capacity.
