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A PIB Backgrounder sets out how infrastructure status, fiscal incentives and clean-energy measures are building India's data centre ecosystem.
Installed data centre power capacity has grown from about 375 MW in 2020 to 1.57 GW as of August 2026, with nearly 8 GW projected by 2030.
Data centres were placed in the Harmonised Master List of Infrastructure Sub-sectors in Union Budget 2022-23, opening cheaper long-term credit.
Union Budget 2026-27 announced a tax holiday for notified foreign cloud service providers using India-based data centre infrastructure until 2047.
The Central Electricity Authority projects data centre electricity demand could reach 17 GW by 2031-32.
PUE divides a facility's total energy draw by the energy reaching its IT equipment. A value of 1.0 is the theoretical ideal, meaning every unit of power does computing work. The Green Grid consortium devised the metric; BIS now publishes an Indian standard for it.
Simple Analogy: Fuel efficiency for a building — how much of the electricity actually reaches the computers.
Build a trusted, resilient domestic semiconductor ecosystem covering fabs, packaging and chip design.
Key: ISM was launched in 2021 with a Rs 76,000 crore outlay under MeitY and runs as an independent business division of Digital India Corporation. Semicon 2.0 was approved by the Union Cabinet on 15 July 2026 with an outlay of Rs 1,27,500 crore.
Build a comprehensive artificial intelligence ecosystem — compute capacity, datasets, skilling and applications.
Key: Approved with a total outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore; the AI workloads it fosters are a principal driver of new data centre demand.
Deepen domestic manufacturing of electronic components feeding the IT hardware chain.
Key: Allocation increased from Rs 22,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore.
Create domestic manufacturing capacity for servers, laptops and other IT hardware and cut import reliance.
Key: Aims to position India as a trusted node in global IT hardware supply chains.
Govern access to non-personal and anonymised government data for research and start-ups.
Key: Released in draft by MeitY in 2022; proposes an India Data Management Office to run an India Datasets Platform.
Give data centres access to cleaner and more reliable electricity.
Key: Green Energy Open Access Rules, the Green Energy Corridor Scheme, the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules and the Solar Park Scheme.
Owns India's electronics, IT and data policy; parent of ISM, IndiaAI and the draft data governance framework.
Technology partner of the Government of India; builds and runs government data centres and e-governance infrastructure.
National standards body; its LITD 31 committee frames data centre efficiency standards (PUE, CUE, CER, WUE).
Notifies building energy codes (ECBC 2017, ECSBC 2024) that carry data-centre-relevant efficiency and water norms.
Statutory adviser to the Ministry of Power on generation and demand planning; source of the 17 GW data centre demand projection for 2031-32.
Adjudicatory body for breaches under the DPDP Act, 2023; activated when the DPDP Rules were notified on 14 November 2025.
Received presidential assent on 11 August 2023; the DPDP Rules were notified on 14 November 2025, activating the Data Protection Board of India. It governs how digital personal data held in Indian data centres may be processed.
Still the governing law for electronic records, intermediaries and cybersecurity. The proposed Digital India Act is intended to replace it and remains at consultation stage, not enacted.
Received presidential assent in December 2025, consolidating India's nuclear law and opening civil nuclear generation to private participation. It enables Small Modular Reactors and micro reactors as clean firm power for AI and data centre loads.
The parent law under which BEE was constituted and under which the ECBC 2017 and ECSBC 2024 building codes are notified.
Roughly 17 international submarine cables land at 14 stations in Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin and Thiruvananthapuram — the bandwidth on which every data centre's traffic ultimately depends.
The SHANTI Act's enabling framework for SMRs and micro reactors is aimed squarely at round-the-clock industrial loads of the kind AI data centres create.
The Backgrounder frames data centres as a foundational layer of the digital economy on the road to the 2047 goal, alongside domestic capability in computing, semiconductors and energy.
Running several virtual machines on one physical server is what lets a single facility serve many workloads — the efficiency technique behind cloud computing itself.
GS Paper 3 > Infrastructure and Science & Technology > Digital Infrastructure
General Awareness > Schemes and Current Affairs
General Awareness > Indian Economy and Digital Infrastructure
Regarding 'DigiLocker', sometimes seen in the news, which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. It is a digital locker system offered by the Government under Digital India Programme. 2. It allows you to access your e-documents irrespective of your physical location. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Answer: Both 1 and 2
Which of the following is/are the aim/aims of "Digital India" Plan of the Government of India? 1. Formation of India's own Internet companies like China did. 2. Establish a policy framework to encourage overseas multinational corporations that collect Big Data to build their large data centres within our national geographical boundaries. 3. Connect many of our villages to the Internet and bring Wi-Fi to many of our schools, public places and major tourist centres. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: 3 only
In India, it is legally mandatory for which of the following to report on cyber security incidents? 1. Service providers 2. Data centres 3. Body corporate Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Answer: 1, 2 and 3
Which one of the following links all the ATMs in India?
Answer: National Payments Corporation of India
Ratio of a data centre's total energy consumption to the energy delivered to its IT equipment; 1.0 is the ideal.
Inclusion in the Harmonised Master List of Infrastructure Sub-sectors notified by the Department of Economic Affairs, which unlocks cheaper long-term institutional credit.
Running multiple virtual machines on a single physical server so that computing resources are used more fully.
The coastal facility where an international submarine cable connects to a country's terrestrial network.