The government is likely to update its 2020 draft of its data centre policy enhancing it with better incentives to address the industry's current needs and demands, as per the Economic Times.
India accounts for 20 per cent of all the data that is generated in the world. However, the country has barely 2 per cent of the world's data centres to store and process it
The government is likely to update its 2020 draft of its data centre policy enhancing it with better incentives to address the industry's current needs and demands, as per the Economic Times.
The incentives would reportedly see data centres being granted infrastructure status on par with other sectors such as railways, ports, roads and power.
The move would also likely see the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) granting additional incentives to companies to set up advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) data centres, which require larger and unified setups at the same location.
As per a government official who was quoted by ET, It is estimated that the cumulative capacity of all data centres pan India is roughy 950 megawatts (MW) and there is an opportunity to double this in the next two-three years.
The investment opportunity in data centres will also touch $6 billion to $7 billion by 2026, the official further added.
The new policy will help companies manage the cost of power, capital and operational expenses by providing incentives to states to provide dedicated zones where data centre parks can be set up.
The zones would reportedly be given tax breaks depending on the nature of the data processing being done at these places.
It is reported that talks will begin with the power ministry on the options for uninterrupted power supply and whether these data centres can be allowed to draw power from other states or the open market instead of the state or union territory they are domiciled in.
It is stated that one of the options at disposal is to incentivise the states or date centre parks themselves to set up captive power generation units.
MeitY in 2020 reportedly released a draft of the Data Centre Policy in which it proposed providing simplified-window clearances to aspiring data centre companies to set up operations in the country.
The draft, which was publicly discussed, put forth additional incentives for companies to use locally manufactured IT hardware including servers, storage and network devices.
Santhosh Vishwanathan, Intel's vice-president and managing director reportedly said that India accounts for 20 per cent of all the data that is generated in the world. However, the country has barely 2 per cent of the world's data centres to store and process it.
Vishwanathan said that this leaves Indian businesses no choice but to store their data in the cloud, which is often stored on servers and data centres that are located outside India's sovereign borders.