Reliance joins Brookfield and Digital Realty's Indian data center JV

India's biggest business conglomerate, Reliance Industries, announced that it would be joining Mercury Holdings SG Pte, the existing joint venture between Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Realty, to build data centers in the country.

Reliance Industries will become an equal partner by acquiring a 33.33% stake in the existing JV. "The partnership will help us serve our enterprise and SMB clients with cutting-edge, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud and lead their digital transformation and make them more competitive and efficient," says Kiran Thomas, CEO, Jio Platforms. The company will be rebranded as Digital Connexion: A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company.

Digital Realty is a global provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data centers, colocation and interconnect solutions, while Brookfield is one of the world's largest infrastructure investors. While Brookfield will bring its knowledge of the Indian infrastructure market, Digital Realty's expertise in data center platform design and processes, as well as its relationship with global customers and Jio's digital and connectivity offerings will help the company grow.

Constant capacity growth

The existing JV is developing data centers in Chennai and Mumbai. "The JV's first 20MW greenfield data center (MAA10), on a 100MW campus in Chennai, is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The JV recently announced the acquisition of 2.15 acres of land in Mumbai, to build a 40MW data center," says the joint press note.

The data centers will be connected to critical terrestrial connectivity infrastructure and subsea cables, and will become gateways into India for multi-companies.

The data center industry is booming, with capacity constantly rising. The growing popularity of over-the-top (OTT) platforms, online gaming and various digital services has led to the growth of India's data center industry. Even more growth will be generated by the recent launch of 5G in the country, as well as IoT and AI.

The deal is subject to regulatory clearances and is likely to be completed within three months.

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— Gagandeep Kaur, Contributing Editor, special to Light Reading