India’s fast-expanding digital economy is drawing fresh long-term capital, with a global real assets platform-backed fund committing new investments across Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad three cities that have emerged as the country’s most critical data centre corridors. The move highlights how digital infrastructure is becoming a core pillar of urban development, reshaping land use, power planning and sustainability priorities in major metropolitan regions.
At the centre of this push is a newly launched India-focused data centre fund that has secured about S$150 million in equity commitments at its first close. The vehicle, sponsored by a Singapore-headquartered investment group, is designed to develop large-scale, future-ready data centres aligned with India’s accelerating demand for cloud services, artificial intelligence workloads and data localisation. Following the first close, the fund is set to acquire a minority stake in three operational and under-development data centre assets located in Navi Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. The combined investment is estimated at S$99.73 million, giving the fund exposure to assets with a total planned gross capacity of around 200 megawatts. Industry experts say this scale places the portfolio firmly within the hyperscale category, catering to global cloud providers and large enterprises. The choice of locations reflects how India’s data infrastructure is clustering around cities that offer reliable power access, fibre connectivity and proximity to enterprise demand. Navi Mumbai has become a preferred data hub due to planned industrial zoning and grid redundancy, while Chennai’s Ambattur belt benefits from submarine cable landings and logistics connectivity. Hyderabad, particularly the Madhapur corridor, has emerged as a high-growth digital district supported by state-led technology policies.
Urban planners note that the rise of data centres is forcing cities to rethink infrastructure planning. These facilities are energy-intensive but land-efficient, raising important questions around renewable power sourcing, water usage and heat management. Developers are increasingly incorporating energy-efficient cooling systems and design features aimed at lowering long-term carbon intensity, responding to both regulatory scrutiny and investor expectations. The fund’s strategy also includes an option to participate in a fourth data centre project in Bengaluru, reinforcing the southern region’s dominance in India’s digital infrastructure map. Analysts point out that such portfolio approaches allow institutional investors to balance development risk while supporting capacity creation in markets with sustained demand visibility. India’s data centre capacity is widely expected to expand sharply over the next few years, driven by rapid digitisation, growth in AI-led services and stricter data governance norms. For cities, this wave of investment brings jobs, auxiliary services and higher-quality infrastructure, but also underscores the need for integrated planning that aligns digital growth with climate resilience and resource efficiency.
As capital flows deepen, the challenge for urban authorities will be to ensure that data infrastructure growth supports inclusive economic development while minimising environmental strain an equilibrium that will define how India’s digital cities evolve over the next decade.
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