Tata Communications today announced plans to invest US$200m over a period of the next three years to double its data center capacity in India.

Talking to Indian newspaper Deccan Herald, Tata Communications' Growth Ventures CEO Rangu Salgame said: "Typically a data centre takes approximately 5 years to reach capacity, however, in well-positioned and strategic locations it could be faster.

He continued: "For example, 95% of the data that is in our data centers today was created in the last 12 months. So that's the scale at which data is exploding," Salgame said.

The company now has data centres at 44 locations globally. In India, Tata Communications has data centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune.

He said that the data center market is growing in India at over 20 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) year-on-year and Tata Communications business is growing slightly faster than the market rate.

Salgame also claimed that privacy and security issue are making companies ensure that their data is stored within the boundary of their country rather than in any foreign locations.

"Multinational companies who are doing well in India are also looking to store data within the country," he said.