Microsoft announces its fourth datacenter region in India; the largest one yet

Abhishek Baxi

macros

In a press event at the Microsoft India Development Center in Hyderabad today, Microsoft announced its intent to establish its latest datacenter region in India. The Hyderabad datacenter region will be an addition to the existing network of three regions in India across Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai. It will offer the entire Microsoft portfolio across the cloud, data solutions, AI, productivity tools, and customer relationship management (CRM).

There’s no definite timeline for the datacenter to be operational, but at the launch, Anant Maheshwari, President of Microsoft India, shared that it typically takes 24 months to setup a datacenter region. Across India, the demand for cloud as a platform for digital transformation, driving economic growth and societal progress, is increasing. The new datacenter region in Hyderabad will play an important role in meeting India’s burgeoning cloud requirements.

Microsoft has a long history with Hyderabad (and the state of Telangana) which hosts the company’s largest development center outside of the Redmond headquarters. This will also be one of the largest foreign direct investments (FDIs) the state has attracted. Microsoft is also partnering closely with the government of Telangana to accelerate the adoption of cloud, AI, IoT and cybersecurity solutions for governance with a variety of skilling programs.

Microsoft India
From left to right: Rajiv Kumar (Managing Director, Microsoft IDC), Anant Maheshwari (President, Microsoft India), and Rajiv Sodhi (Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India)

According to IDC, Microsoft datacenter regions in India contributed $9.5B revenue to the economy between 2016 and 2020. Beyond GDP impact, the IDC report estimated 1.5 million jobs were added to the economy, including 169,000 new skilled IT jobs.

The new datacenter region will be built with sustainable design and operations in mind, enabling Microsoft to responsibly deliver cloud services at scale. The company has already committed to have a 100 percent renewable energy supply equivalent to the electricity consumed by Microsoft datacenters by 2025.