NTT Communications has announced plans to open a new data center in partnership with local managed services provider Netmagic Solutions in India. Netmagic is a managed hosting and cloud services provider, of which NTT holds a 74 percent stake since acquiring a majority of its shares in 2012.

Located in Mumbai, the new data center will have 300,000 square feet of space and 3,000 racks, making it one of the largest data centers in the country. The second data center to be built post acquisition, it is expected to be operational in the third quarter of 2015. It will offer between 20MW and 28MW of energy capacity, and four different fiber pathways, though the company did not offer additional details about the latter.

First fully-owned data center 

“This is the first data center that we own ourselves instead of having a long-term lease as is the industry norm,” said Sharad Sanghi, Netmagic’s CEO and managing director in a Q&A interview carried on the ChannelTimes. “We would be investing $100 million in this data center.”

Mumbai was chosen as the city holds the corporate headquarters of many global cloud providers, multinational banks and finance groups. Netmagic hopes that this combination will help boost business, especially as its existing Mumbai facilities are out of space.

At the moment, Netmagic currently owns eight facilities in India, including four in Mumbai, two in Bengaluru, as well as one each in Chennai and Noida. Separately, NTT is planning to build data centers in Hyderabad and Pune to respond to new business demand, reports The Stack. The developments come at a time when the Indian government is promoting its long-term “Digital India” initiative.

We reported last year that India is not in the running as a global data center hub despite its reputation as a top offshore destination in IT and back-office services. This is due to the lack of access to cheap bandwidth and robust power infrastructure. Rolling power-cuts are commonplace in parts of the country, which has allowed smaller countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore to move ahead in the race.