The government of India's Telangana state has announced Microsoft’s intent to establish three more data centres with an investment of US$1.96 billion (S$2.58 billion) in Hyderabad.
The firm had already announced its first captive data centre investment of three campuses early in 2022, taking up the total proposed data centres to six.
According to an official release, these centres form an integral part of Microsoft's goal of strengthening its cloud infrastructure to serve Azure's customers in India and worldwide. All six data centres are estimated to be deployed phase-wise in the next 10-15 years.
Telangana's IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao said that the announcement comes following a discussion with Microsoft president (Asia) Ahmed Mazhari at Microsoft Cafe in Davos, Switzerland on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF).
With Hyderabad as one of the most important markets across the world for Microsoft, Mazhari said they have plans to continue investments in the city. “Apart from data centres, we will work with the government to identify special projects and support them in implementing them," he added.
Rao added that Microsoft and Hyderabad have had a very long-term mutually beneficial relationship and he looks forward to seeing Microsoft’s expansion in the state.
Telangana had earlier signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Microsoft to enable several beneficial activities such as skilling, internship programmes and cloud adoption. As part of the state’s cloud adoption, it has partnered Microsoft Azure to enhance the infrastructure for citizen services.
