
NTT launches new hyperscale data centre park in Mumbai


Tokyo-based technology services company, NTT has unveiled its new hyperscale data centre, NAV1A, in Navi Mumbai. The new data centre has a capacity to host 5,000 racks and support over 30 MW of IT load.
The NAV1A campus in Mahape, Navi Mumbai is planned with the capacity for up to four data centres, reaching up to 150 MW of facility load. In Mumbai region, NTT has three data centre campuses, in Chandivali, Mahape and Airoli.
The $11-billion company has 12 data centres in India spread across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, and Chennai, with a total facility power capacity close to 220 MW. It is coming up with a 6-acre data centre in Chennai and a similar one in Noida that are expected to go live by early next year.

These are parts of the planned $2 billion investment that the company had earmarked in 2020 for scaling its infrastructure capacity. NTT is one of the world’s largest data centre operators, with over 1,300 MW of data centre capacity today, including a large development pipeline of a 25% increase in capacity across more than 20 countries and regions globally.
Speaking about the data centre explosion in the country and the acute skill shortage faced by the industry, Sharad Sanghi, Managing Director, NTT India, said, “There is a significant need for people with the right skillsets to keep pace with the growth, for example, cloud architects, who are responsible for planning, designing, developing the architecture for migrating applications in the cloud, are in great demand.”
“Similarly, organisations need more people who have the adequate skills in load balancing, network engineering, cybersecurity and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Additionally, data centres require certified personnel in facilities management and project management to keep up with the growth momentum,” he said.

NAV1A is one of the first data centres in India to have deployed alternative cooling solutions including Liquid Immersion Cooling and Direct Contact Liquid Cooling. These innovative solutions, deployed at scale have the potential to significantly improve a data centre's PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness).
Sanghi also said that NTT is relentlessly working and leading in clean energy in data centre operations. It has built a solar power plant in Solapur, Maharashtra, a wind and solar energy plant in Karnataka. “We have ambitious plans to steadily enhance our solar and wind power production, gradually moving towards carbon-neutrality in the future,” he said.
In March this year, a joint study published by JLL India and Nxtra, the data centre subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, said that data centres are set to power the country’s fast-paced digital transformation that’s likely to create an economic value of $1 trillion by 2025.

“The growing digitalisation across sectors in recent years has indeed given a fillip to the demand for data centres in India. The increased data consumption, especially usage of digital commerce and payments during the lockdown further underscored the need for scaling up data processing, archiving and storage requirements,” said P. N. Sudarshan, Partner and TMT Industry Leader, Deloitte India.
“India's progress towards becoming a true digital economy, backed by progressive government policies, is encouraging domestic and global data centre operators to make huge investments in the country,” Sunil Gupta, CEO of Hiranandani group-run Yotta Infrastructure mentioned in an earlier interaction with TechCircle.
The growth of edge data centres is expected to pick up with commercialisation of 5G services in the country. Higher data speeds due to 5G infrastructure will boost data consumption, especially for high latency applications like social media, OTT, and streaming platforms.
