New laws can help India increase data center capacity: Intel

Last week, semiconductor giant Intel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gurugram-based contract manufacturer VVDN Technologies. In the deal, Intel will supply its reference designs and chips to VVDN to locally manufacture 5G radios for the telecommunications sector, connected sensors for manufacturing, cameras for smart surveillance, and more. According to Santosh Viswanathan, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing, Intel India, this is an early indication of the potential that India has in the enterprise segment for technology suppliers like Intel.

“Building data center capacity in India is a key aspect of enterprise business that we need to start thinking about. 800 million people are on the internet in India, and this is generating huge amounts of data from across the market. But, India still has less than 2% of the world’s data center capacity. This presents a huge opportunity,” said Viswanathan, who replaced Prakash Mallya in January.

The demand for data centers is increasing in India. According to a September 27 report by commercial real estate firm JLL India, the growth in data usage in financial services, entertainment and retail domains, coupled with an increase in the number of cloud service providers, is expected to push India’s actual data center capacity to 1318MW . MW) by 2024.

According to Viswanathan, developing this capability could be crucial for India to play a more substantial business role for companies like Intel – and adopting adequate policies in this regard.

“Some legislative efforts, such as the Data Protection Bill, will help create a demand to localize data. This creates a huge opportunity for data center growth, and for India to develop over 2% of the world’s capacity, “They said.

India withdrew the Data Protection Bill in August and plans to introduce a new law soon. The new law is expected to provide a holistic overview of regulating the use of technology in India, including how data can be localized in the country.

Viswanathan also said that India already has a ‘mass’ of data, a key indicator of the growing demand for the data center sector. This puts India in an advantageous position compared to other countries with higher data center capacity but lower data density.