Both Web Werks and CapitaLand have signed Memorandums of Understanding with the Tamil Nadu government regarding the construction of data centres in and around Chennai, India.
This week, the local government signed memorandums of understanding for 35 projects throughout the region, including with the two companies for data centres located throughout the city, formerly known as Madras.
CapitaLand, a Singapore-based real estate firm, is reportedly investing 1200 crore ($160.7 million) in a facility located in Tamil Nadu west of Chennai in the Ambattur area.
Local data centre company Web Werks is reportedly planning to invest 700 crore ($93.7 million) in “Siruseri/Ambattur,” implying the development of two facilities in two different parts of Chennai. Siruseri is located to the city’s south.
Neither company has issued a public statement in response to the MoUs.
Business Standard reported in January that CapitaLand would develop data centres in partnership with Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors, the private equity arm of Indian conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji Group. The two companies were reported to be investing up to $5 billion over the next five years, with the initial investment focused on a five-acre plot in Chennai’s Ambattur neighbourhood.
Sterling & Wilson, a subsidiary of the Shapoorji Pallonji group, recently completed the delivery of a prefabricated data centre to Cairo’s Faisal Islamic Bank in collaboration with DCG subsidiary RZ-Products.
Earlier this month, CapitaLand-owned Ascendas India Trust announced the development of its first data centre campus, a 90MW facility in Navi Mumbai, India. Ascendas India Trust is a real estate investment trust that owns IT and logistics parks in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai, India.
This is the second such agreement Web Werks has signed this month. The company announced last week that it had reached an agreement with the Karnataka government to invest $100 million in the development of a data centre in Bengaluru. The 125,000-square-foot (11,600-square-meter) facility will have a maximum capacity of 20MW and will begin operations in 2023.
The company currently operates data centres in Pune, Delhi NCR, and Mumbai, with plans to expand its presence in the latter city by adding another 12.5MW data centre. Web Werks and Iron Mountain formed a joint venture earlier this year, with the US company expecting to invest $150 million over the next two years to fund expansions in its three existing markets, as well as in Hyderabad, Chennai, and the new Bangalore facility.
