Both Web Werks and CapitaLand have signed Memoranda of Understandings with the Tamil Nadu government to build data centers in and around Chennai, India.
The local Government this week signed MoUs for 35 projects in the region, including with the two companies for data centers around the city, formerly known as Madras.
Singapore-based real estate firm CapitaLand is reportedly investing 1200 crore ($160.7 million) in a facility in the Ambattur area, west of Chennai.
Local data center firm Web Werks is reportedly due to invest 700 crore ($93.7 million) in “Siruseri/Ambattur”, possibly suggesting two facilities could be in development in two parts of Chennai. Siruseri is located to the south of the city.
Neither company has made a public comment on the MoUs.
Update: Web Werks CEO Nikhil Rathi told the New Indian Express that the Ambattur facility will be a 20MW data center.
"Data centers require ample land and ample power and Tamil Nadu and Chennai meet the requirement. And that is why everyone is making a beeline in Chennai,” he said.
In January it was reported by Business Standard that CapitaLand was to partner with Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors, the private equity arm of Indian conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji Group, to develop data centers. It was reported the two companies would invest up to $5 billion over the next five years with initial investment focused on a five-acre plot in the Ambattur area of Chennai.
Sterling & Wilson, a Shapoorji Pallonji group subsidiary, recently delivered a prefabricated data center to the Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt in Cairo alongside DCG subsidiary RZ-Products.
Earlier this month the CapitaLand-owned Ascendas India Trust announced its first data center development; a 90MW data center campus in Navi Mumbai, India. Ascendas India Trust is a property trust which owns IT and logistics parks in India across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai.
This agreement also marks the second such MoU Web Werks has signed this month. Last week the company announced an agreement with the government of Karnataka to invest $100 million building a data center in Bengaluru. The 125,000 square foot (11,600 sq m) facility will have a power capacity of up to 20MW and launch in 2023.
The company currently operates facilities in Pune, Delhi NCR, and Mumbai - with plans to launch another 12.5MW data center in the latter city. Earlier this year, Web Werks entered into a joint venture with Iron Mountain, with the US company expecting to invest $150 million over the next two years to fund expansions in its three existing markets, as well as in Hyderabad, Chennai, and the new Bangalore facility.
