Power: Not only an environmental call but a financial one!

Rack-density maths has changed. Localisation and Cloud are adding boosters to the fuel driving new growth. Operators are pre-booking renewable power, fibre routes and cooling upgrades to avoid future constraints. Captive renewable procurement and long-term PPAs are redefining power strategies. Bundled stacks are the new norm. Pinkesh Kotecha, Chairman and Managing Director of Ishan Technologies, gives an interstitial view that shows that India’s data centres are being reincarnated both inside and outside.

What is changing about data centre infrastructure in India, and does this shift mirror global evolution?

India’s data centre infrastructure is in the middle of a structural shift. We have moved beyond traditional enterprise server rooms to hyperscale-grade, cloud-friendly and edge-enabled facilities. This trajectory is similar to the United States and mature APAC markets, but the pace in India is faster because cloud adoption and regulatory localisation are happening together. Five years ago, the focus was on megawatt capacity and connectivity. Today, the conversation is about density, sovereign data needs, renewable energy procurement and infrastructure resilience. This puts India firmly on the global map rather than in a catch-up position.

What’s your reckoning of factors like high-density design, power models, localisation and integrated stacks?

We are seeing a clear rise in high-density designs. Racks that traditionally ran at eight to ten kilowatts are now asked at fifteen to twenty kilowatts, especially for AI and cloud workloads. That forces operators to rethink power, cooling and modularity. Capacity planning also looks different. It is no longer about securing land and power and waiting for tenants. Operators are pre-booking renewable power, fibre routes and cooling upgrades to avoid future constraints.

How is this translating into energy procurement?

Power procurement models have changed as well. Captive renewable procurement and long-term PPAs are increasingly common in states like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka. This is not only an environmental call but a financial one because power tariffs will continue to rise. Government localisation requirements are another strong driver. With DPDP obligations and sectoral guidelines for BFSI and telecom, Indian enterprises want critical workloads to stay within the country. The result is that hyperscalers and domestic integrators are expanding aggressively. At the same time, the industry is moving toward integrated stacks. Customers now prefer compute, cloud connectivity, security and continuity bundled instead of managing multiple vendors, which aligns with global trends.

What about Sustainability – is it intentional or cosmetic?

Sustainability in data centres has moved well beyond optics and is now a deliberate design and commercial consideration. Parameters such as water usage, cooling architecture, renewable energy sourcing and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) are increasingly part of enterprise procurement discussions. This is particularly evident in BFSI and telecom workloads, where customers are required to disclose Scope 2 emissions and demonstrate energy efficiency as part of regulatory and ESG reporting.

As a result, newer data centre campuses are being planned with closed-loop water systems, alternative cooling approaches that reduce reliance on mechanical cooling, and renewable power purchase agreements driven by both carbon reduction and long-term cost stability. Expectations around PUE have also tightened. The market is no longer comfortable with ratios of 1.6 or higher; new facilities in India are targeting sub-1.4 levels, in line with benchmarks seen in Europe and Singapore. The notion that sustainability constrains data centre growth is misplaced. In reality, inefficient power and cooling have become economically unsustainable, making efficiency a prerequisite for scale rather than a trade-off.

How is the industry evolving in areas like outages, downtime, redundancies and?

The industry has matured, but expectations around performance continue to rise. While outages are less frequent, they still occur, leading enterprises to insist on multi-availability zone designs, in-built redundancy and disaster recovery planned at the architecture stage rather than added later. Security expectations have also shifted from perimeter-based models to zero-trust frameworks, segmentation and continuous monitoring, driven by both regulation and stricter cyber insurance norms.

What about AI-readiness?

AI readiness is becoming critical, as AI workloads place higher demands on power density, cooling and low-latency networks. Infrastructure that is not designed for this upfront will struggle to scale efficiently, which is why an integrated approach that brings together resilient connectivity, secure cloud environments and managed operations is increasingly central to sustaining uptime, security and future growth.

Will AI demand make data centre planning one-dimensional?

AI is clearly accelerating investment, both globally and in India, but there is a risk in assuming AI demand will scale in a straight line. The industry has seen similar cycles before, whether during the telecom fibre build-out or early cloud expansion, where capacity was built ahead of sustained demand. More disciplined operators are responding by developing flexible campuses that can support cloud, enterprise and AI workloads interchangeably, rather than betting on a single use case.

Is there an AI-bubble risk?

The greater risk lies with facilities designed exclusively for AI training, with limited ability to pivot. If inference and enterprise adoption do not scale at the pace investors expect, such infrastructure could remain underutilised. India is still early in this cycle, which makes caution, flexibility and optionality more valuable than chasing short-term hype.

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in