Digital Realty, Brookfield Infrastructure and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) have entered a three-way joint venture, establishing a company called Digital Connexion to develop data centres in India.
Each partner will own one-third of the joint venture. Digital Connexion expects to build and develop data centre campuses on strategic land parcels it owns in Chennai and Mumbai.
Digital Connexion, A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company, will succeed and build on the strong foundation laid by BAM Digital Realty, by including RIL, India’s largest private sector company, that has enabled and led India’s digital transformation through Jio, as a partner.
“India is a mostly untapped market for the data centre industry driven by the rapid adoption of digital business models, the world’s largest population, and a government that recognises the role of technology for future economic development,” said Serene Nah, managing director and head of Asia Pacific, Digital Realty.
“This joint venture brings together three global leaders in digital infrastructure to accelerate Digital India by developing, owning and operating institutional quality carrier-and cloud neutral data centers across India.”
Serene Nah, Digital Realty
Rapid growth
The Indian data center market is experiencing rapid growth, driven by the growing adoption of digital technologies, cloud computing, and the surge in data consumption fueling the demand for robust and scalable data center infrastructure.
India represents a key market opportunity for Digital Realty to extend coverage, capacity, and connectivity options to cloud providers, hyperscalers and to both local and global enterprise customers.
Data centres developed in India by the JV will leverage Digital Realty’s industry-leading energy-efficient data center platform, design and operating procedures, highly-repeatable Pervasive Data Center Architecture (PDx) approach and relationships with global customers.
The new JV will also tap into Brookfield’s in-depth knowledge of the Indian infrastructure market, as well as leverage Jio’s massive digital and connectivity ecosystem and very strong enterprise relationships with an existing client base of 80% of large named private enterprises in India.
Enabling India’s digital transformation
Speaking about the joint venture, Kiran Thomas, CEO, Jio Platforms, said: “This partnership with Digital Realty and Reliance 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.”
Jio Platforms is a subsidiary of RIL, which builds and operates an all-IP network with 4G LTE and 5G technologies. It is the only network conceived as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up and can be easily upgraded to support advanced technologies such as 6G and beyond.
Thomas pointed out that Jio’s innovations around high-definition live content, AR / VR experiences, cloud gaming, immersive shopping experiences and cloud PC have massive compute capacity requirements.
“We would like to thank the Indian government for granting infrastructure status to data centers and for creating a favorable ecosystem for their development and operations, which is critical for India’s vision to become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2025.”
Kiran Thomas, Jia Platforms
Jio’s all-IP, 4G and 5G connectivity network with deep fiber presence, nearly 100% of the Indian population. It strategically expands the JV’s connectivity to data centers and other establishments in the country. It extends the reach of PlatformDIGITAL, Digital Realty’s global data center platform with 300+ data centers, in 50+ metros, across 27 countries and six continents, giving customers access to a dense connected data community of partners, solutions and services, including Jio’s network, cloud and other service solutions in India.
Dedicated management team
Digital Connexion will have a dedicated management team in India, with leadership oversight from Digital Realty, Brookfield and RIL.
With the complementary strengths of its three partners, Digital Connexion has world-class skills and resources available to enable it to support global and local customers seeking to serve the large and growing Indian market.
“We are very pleased to expand our existing partnership with Reliance and add their deep expertise in the Indian telecom, tech and data landscape to the platform,” said Arpit Agrawal, managing director, head of infrastructure, India & Middle East, Brookfield.
“Data Centers provide essential services and critical infrastructure to support the digitalisation that is taking place in every aspect of life in India. Together with Reliance and Digital Realty, we look forward to providing the best of solutions to the digital transformation needs of Indian and global corporates.
Ar[ot Agrawal, Brookfield
