Colt DCS investing in 100MW data centre in Mumbai

India has become hot property for many big technology companies and hyperscalers as its potential for growth appears to be unrelenting.

Colt Data Center Services is one of these companies, having announced today that it has successfully acquired land in Mumbai and intends to build a huge 100MW hyperscale data center into the major market.

With locations already established across Europe and a number of locations in Asia (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea), this is Colt DCS' first foray into India.

The company says the decision to expand its operations into India was inevitable as it has received substantial customer demand for its data center space as cloud service consumption continues to thrive.

According to Colt DCS, cloud revenue in India alone is forecast to grow at a 25 percent compound annual growth rate between 2016-2021.

In terms of why Colt DCS chose Mumbai, the company says it is the financial hub of India and contains a large domestic customer vertical, with many international cloud service providers entering or expanding their footprint in the region to keep up with the demand for digital services.

"With half of the total population in India under the age of 25, the new generation of digitally savvy individuals is creating a huge data footprint in the region," says Colt DCS CEO Detlef Spang.

"As data consumption continues to rise at an exponential rate, more businesses and consumers are demanding a reliable data and network infrastructure to deliver fast connectivity and on-demand services. Colt DCS will play a key role in providing the data center infrastructure to enable this through its investment in Mumbai.

According to Colt DCS, the 100ME facility will be part of a campus-style development that will cater for further data centers within the same location. The company has already secured a super high-voltage power supply of 150MVA utility feed to the site to speed up delivery.

"We are tremendously excited to be part of the digital transformation journey in India," says Colt DCS CEO Detlef Spang.

"The country is a hot spot of digital innovation, and there is a hugely unique opportunity for us to be the very first western data center provider to enable the delivery of [cloud computing and services] across India, this is huge milestone for the organisation and a very exciting point in time for the expansion of our business.

Colt DCS says it will be the first mainstream western data center operator to enter the Indian market, which is predominately served by smaller and more local data center providers.

Construction is due to begin in 2019 with the data center hoped to be operational in the second half of 2020.