JOIN USGovernment plans scheme to increase hyperscale data centres in India by 10-fold, says IT secretary
The government is planning to come up with a scheme to incentivise investments in hyperscale data centres in the country and increase the current capacity by over 10-fold in a short period, a senior IT ministry official said on Thursday.
Electronics and IT Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney said there has been a good response to production-linked incentive schemes for which application windows are open and the scheme around hyperscale data centres will be beneficial for those who manufacture high end servers.
"Within the MeitY, we have prepared a policy on hyperscale data centres and also a scheme for incentivising investments in hyperscale data centres. The current scale of hyperscale data centres here in India is counted in terms of power consumed.
"It comes to 200 megawatts. Our effort will be to come out with a policy and scheme that aims 10-fold growth in this in a short time span," Sawhney said at a virtual summit organised by IT hardware makers MAIT.
He said the government has set up a mission for designing microprocessors and has also floated expressions of interest for setting up electronic chip plants.
"MeitY has come to the market with a request for a semiconductor fab. This has already elicited some response and we will be closing this by April 30.
"Based on the helpful response, we will be formulating a scheme and come out with proposals for setting up semiconductor fab in India," Sawhney said.
The government has also reached out to companies for setting up display plants in the country and exploring the interests of various players in the segment, Sawhney said.
"Both for foundry and display fab, there is a huge demand as we move forward over the next 4-5 years. Foundries account for only 20 per cent chips that get used in electronic manufacturing.
"Even at this 20 per cent, there is a room for at least three fab foundries with capacity of something 30,000-40,000 units of 12 inch wafer per month. Similarly, there is burgeoning demand for displays," he said.
The IT secretary urged industry players to focus on new products that are yet to be created with 5G and internet of things products knocking on the door.
He said that every sector of the economy will need electronics.
"Do not focus entirely on existing products, it is a new product segment that is going to be overwhelmingly large" Sawhney said.