Foreign investments in alternative real estate assets have surged sixfold over the past four years, signaling a significant shift in investment trends. Notably, data centers have emerged as a magnet for institutional capital, attracting a staggering $1 billion in investments since 2019, with an exponential rise in the past five years. During the period from 2019 to H1 2023, data centers have commanded a remarkable 51% share of total investments in alternative real estate, underscoring their growing prominence in the market.

As reported by Business Insider, India’s data center market is at the forefront of this rapid expansion, driven by a remarkable confluence of factors, including virtualization, e-commerce, cloud computing, and the prolific generation of public data. As the world’s second-fastest-growing digital economy, India is poised to witness the doubling of its IT and communication sector by 2025, making a monumental contribution of approximately $400 billion to the Indian GDP, according to Amit Sarin, Managing Director at Anant Raj, a prominent real estate developer.

The recent enactment of the Data Protection Bill by the Indian government has further stoked the demand for data centers, accentuating their pivotal role in safeguarding sensitive data. Large platform deals are also on the rise, exemplified by Lumina CloudInfra’s $300 million investment plan to develop a data center campus in Navi Mumbai, and Reliance Industries’ strategic partnerships with Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Realty for data center development in select Indian locations. Read More