Data centres must be treated as strategic infra: NITI report

New Delhi: Data centres must be treated as strategic infrastructure, not just investment projects, NITI Aayog said on Wednesday.

The Aayog, in a report titled 'Data Centre Evaluation Framework to Help States Plan for Sustainable Growth', further said common standards, templates and guidance from the central government can support data-centre growth across states.

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It added that a practical guide is needed to enable data-centre growth while protecting local systems, securing measurable public value, and maintaining clear accountability throughout the project lifecycle.

The report pitched for identifying readiness gaps, responsible entity and completion date, together with a lifecycle and decommissioning plan for setting up data centres.

Releasing the report, NITI Aayog CEO Anurag Jain said that good thing is that all the states are coming up with the policies to attract data centres.

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"To my understanding, nine or 10 states have already shown initial interest," Jain said. He said India is one country which has taken a path of sustainable development.

India’s growing data-centre sector presents an opportunity to attract investment, strengthen the nation’s growing AI economy and build domestic technological capabilities. However, data centre projects also require significant amounts of electricity, water, land, and supporting infrastructure. States need a structured approach to assess these requirements alongside the economic benefits of proposed investments.

Goldman Sachs projects that AI capex will more than double from USD 765 billion this year to USD 1.6 trillion by 2031, totalling USD 7.6 trillion cumulatively, across compute, data centres, and power.

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