3 days Ago
Pune: Global tech giant Microsoft has invested about Rs 1,000 crore to acquire two land parcels in Hinjewadi over two months in a strategic move to boost its presence in the country. The firm is expected to set up data centres on the acquired land, sources familiar with the transaction said. In Aug, the firm had acquired 16.
4 acre of land in Hinjewadi, followed by last week's acquisition of another 16 acres of land in the area, Pune rural joint district registrar Pravin Deshpande confirmed on Monday. Microsoft acquired the one land parcel from Ashoka Buildcon's subsidiary, Viva Highways, and another from Sanjiv Arora-owned Indo Global Infotech City. "The acquired land parcels are located outside the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) limits, not requiring permission from the industrial development authority," an official said.
This is the third land deal by Microsoft in Pune. In 2022, the firm had acquired a 25-acre plot in Pimpri Chinchwad. The firm had earlier this year bought 48 acres in Hyderabad too.
The company operates data centres in Chinchwad and Hyderabad. Sources said by the end of 2026, the firm expected to employ 289 full-time staffers and contractors across all the operational facilities. The firm's data centre operations include campus management, people management, learning and development, IT operations, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, security contractors, building maintenance and critical environments.
Microsoft operates more than 300 data centres in over 34 countries. "Demonstrating this trend, our data intelligence research on registered land transactions indicates that more tech-oriented global firms are expanding their presence in India for new office spaces, development centres and data centres," Anand Moorthy, cofounder of proptech firm Square Yards, said. The data centre industry in India is set to witness a remarkable growth, with projections of adding 791 MW capacity by 2026, a report by global real estate services firm JLL stated.
The expansion would drive a demand for 1 crore square feet of real estate space, attracting investments worth nearly Rs 48,000 crore ($5.7 billion), it stated, adding that the surge was primarily fuelled by the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The demand for data centres was expected to be in the range of 650-800 MW during 2024-26, the report stated.
The exponential growth in computing power and the resulting new applications are expected to drive strong demand for data centres over the medium term. Cloud service providers, who essentially offer IT infrastructure systems primarily for data storage and computing power accessible through the internet, have realigned their requirements to factor in AI-led demand, industry players said. Some of the major data centre firms with operations in Pune include STTelemedia and AdaniConnex.
STTelemedia has centre campus in Dighi since 2009. It is one of the largest data centre with a total power capacity of 40MW of IT load. AdaniConnex has a data centre in Pune with a capacity 70 MW IT load.
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