Summary:
India’s data-center industry is poised for a multi-year growth cycle, driven by cloud adoption, AI computing demand, and 5G deployment, making it a strong infrastructure play for the digital age.
India’s data center sector is on track for rapid expansion. Annual revenues for operators are projected to grow by about 20-22% through fiscal 2028, reaching ₹20,000 crore. The forecast comes from Crisil Ratings, which estimates that by March 2028, overall data-center capacity in India will double to 2.3–2.5 GW. This growth is fueled by surging demand for public cloud services, artificial intelligence workloads, and 5G-driven low-latency applications, all of which require robust, scalable data-center infrastructure.
Despite the substantial expected capital expenditure (CapEx) of around ₹55,000–₹65,000 crore between FY26 and FY28 to build and upgrade facilities, Crisil expects credit profiles of data-center operators to remain healthy. Stable cash flows and long-term leases, especially with “hyperscaler” clients, should keep leverage, gross debt to EBITDA at moderate levels (estimated at 4.6-4.7×).
What makes this trend especially significant is that India’s data-center density is measured as capacity per unit of data consumed, remains among the lowest globally, leaving substantial headroom for expansion.
