NTT opens USD 300-mn hyperscale data centre with subsea cable systems in Chennai

The country’s largest data centre operator NTT on Thursday opened its second hyper scale data centre campus in Chennai with subsea cable systems at an investment of USD 300 million.

With the Chennai 2 campus commissioning, NTT’s data centre footprint in the country has grown to 16 facilities, with over 3.1 million sq ft and 205 MW of IT power, further strengthening its position as the market leader in this segment. The 6 acre-campus is located at Ambattur and has a total planned capacity of 34.8 MW critical IT load from two data centre buildings. The first facility that is going live today has a 17.4 MW capacity, the company said in a statement without disclosing the investment.

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However, an NTT official told PTI that the company invested USD 300 million in the second campus and the subsea cable system. Called the MIST subsea cable, the new cable system was constructed by consortium members, including NTT Communications India Network Service and Orient Link, and is the first cable system for the NTT Group to offer direct connectivity to/from India. The subsea cable system spans 8,100 km and will connect Malaysia, India, Singapore, and Thailand, offering cutting-edge connectivity. The MIST cable system also represents the country’s first cable landing of a 12-fibre pair capacity, capable of carrying over 200 TBPS data.

The company chose to land the subsea cable system in Chennai because of the city’s strategic location, which offers three opportunities — demand for a high-quality data centre due to its thriving digital ecosystem; positioning Chennai as a disaster recovery site for enterprises; and leveraging global connectivity to offer data centre capacity to Southeast Asian markets like Singapore, where capacity is in short supply. These capabilities will transform Chennai into a digital gateway connecting India to Southeast Asia and the world, the statement claimed. Sharad Sanghi, chairman of NTT Global Data Centers & Cloud Infrastructure India, said the investment roadmap here includes multiple data centre campuses, renewable energy plants and subsea cables.

Orient Link is a strategic JV led by NTT Group and established with partners of Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services Inc and WEN Capital to respond to the growing demands for international data traffic across countries in the Southeast Asia region. NTT is a USD 30-billion IT infrastructure and services company, serving 65 per cent of the Fortune Global 500 and over 75 per cent of the Fortune Global 100, and has an operational data centre capacity of 1,900 MW across 20 countries and regions.