Bharti Airtel announced on Thursday that it will invest Rs 5,000 crore to scale up its data centre business. It also unveiled a new brand identity for its data centre business, ‘Nxtra by Airtel’. The expansion will include new data centre parks in key metro cities. Airte said that the investment will triple Nxtra’s installed capacity to over 400 MW to meet the surging demand.
The telecom major stated that Nxtra has the largest network of data centres in the country. It currently operates 10 large and 120 edge data centres located strategically in India. It also manages critical submarine landing stations.
Along with Airtel’s network, Nxtra also offers secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyperscalers, large Indian enterprises, start-ups, SMEs and governments, the company said.
This announcement comes as the country moves towards 5G. With a fast-growing economy and enterprises transitioning to cloud and local data storage regulations, there is likely to be strong demand for reliable data centre solutions.
Director and CEO of Airtel Business Ajay Chitkara said, “Airtel has built the largest data centre network in India and we are now doubling down on this business to scale up our network that will be at the core of 5G and Digital India. Our experience of operating secure data centres, deep brand trust in the enterprise segment and the ability to deliver end-to-end digital transformation solutions positions us well to serve the emerging requirements of India’s connected economy.”
Airtel said there will be huge energy requirements in these data centres and that it plans to scale up green energy for data centres. It aims to source 50 per cent of the power requirements through renewable sources. Nxtra also recently commissioned captive solar power plants in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, with more in the pipeline.
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