Ascendas India Trust to Invest Rs 1,200 Cr in Navi Mumbai Data Centre
Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte. Ltd, the trustee manager of Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust), has announced that it will invest an estimated Rs 12 billion (Rs 1200 crore) to develop and operate phase one of its first data centre campus on a prime site in Navi Mumbai. It will be one of the largest data centre campuses in Airoli, a growing data centre hub in Navi Mumbai. The 6.6-acre greenfield site will be developed in phases into a fully-fitted data centre campus with a total potential built-up area of up to 575,000 square feet (sqft) and 90 megawatts (MW) of power to host customers such as global technology giants and cloud service providers, as well as large domestic enterprise clients, the company said. The acquisition of the site from third-party vendors is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2021. The data centre campus will comprise two buildings. In phase one, the first building, which is scheduled to be ready by 2Q 2024, will have a built-up area of about 325,000 sqft. “Our entry into the data centre sector in India will diversify a-iTrust’s portfolio into an attractive and highly scalable asset class. India has the second fastest growing digital economy in the world. The large market size combined with the increasing trends towards data localisation validates our market entry strategy. Developing our first data centre campus with support from our sponsor, CapitaLand, will allow us to leverage the CapitaLand Group’s data centre expertise and gives us complete control over the design and quality of the data centre. We look to improve our portfolio resilience through diversification into new economy asset classes such as data centres and life sciences. As we grow further, we will continue to be prudent in our capital management and nimble in seizing investment opportunities, to maximise unitholders’ returns,” said Sanjeev Dasgupta, chief executive officer of the trustee-manager of Ascendas India Trust. The data centre campus site which a-iTrust is acquiring is situated in a prime location along Thane-Belapur Road, easily accessible from Mumbai city via the Eastern Express Highway. Navi Mumbai has emerged as a preferred data centre location since it offers proximity to sea cable landing stations, larger land parcels with clear title, abundant and scalable power, developed infrastructure and seamless vendor neutral network connectivity. When it is fully developed, the data centre campus will have an overall capacity to host approximately 8,500 racks and operate at an efficient power usage effectiveness of approximately 1.4. As a result of a-iTrust’s acquisition and development of the phase one of the data centre campus, the Trust’s portfolio size (including pipeline projects) will increase by 1.2 percent from approximately 24.9 million sqft to 25.2 million sqft, the company said.
Tags : News/Views Navi Mumbai invest Data Centre Ascendas India Trust