Microsoft unveils fourth data center in India

FILE PHOTO: The Microsoft logo is pictured at a service center in New Delhi, India April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Saumya Khandelwal

March 7, 2022

By Munsif Vengattil

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp on Monday inaugurated its fourth data center in India, banking on rising digital consumption in one of its fastest growing markets.

Anant Maheshwari, head of Microsoft India, said the company was making long-term investments in the country but declined to confirm local media reports of a $2 billion price tag for the latest center.

“A public cloud data center is not a one-time investment, it’s an ongoing investment that we make,” Maheshwari told Reuters. “In the last two years we have doubled the capacity in the existing three data centers.”

According to research firm IDC, the total market for public cloud services in India is expected to reach $10.8 billion by 2025.

The Indian government has been urging foreign tech companies to store more of their data locally, a move seen as New Delhi’s attempt to gain tighter oversight over big tech companies.

Maheshwari said Microsoft will continue to expand its workforce in India from the current 18,000 “both during the pandemic and going forward”.

“We already serve more than 340,000 companies in the country,” Maheshwari said.

The new data center is located in the southern Indian state of Telangana.

The company’s business model, which relies on partners building additional services on its Azure cloud platform, has generated about $10 billion in business over the past five years, Maheshwari said.

Competitors join the race in India. Main competitor Amazon announced in late 2020 that it would spend $2.8 billion to build its second data center in the country, while Adani Group last year announced plans to build six data center parks across the country.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing by Jane Wardell)