Mumbai holds about half of India's operating data centre capacity, 890 MW of 1,789 MW in the first half of 2026. The next wave looks more spread out: Hyderabad's pipeline is nearly five times its operating base, and Visakhapatnam and Odisha have large announced projects. Pipeline figures are plans, not buildings.
This article walks through the map city by city, with the source and date of each figure. Where numbers come from different trackers, it says so. Nothing here is investment advice, and company figures are unaudited.
Key numbers at a glance
- India operating capacity, first half 2026: 1,789 MW (Cushman and Wakefield, reported by ANI, 16 September 2026).
- Official installed figure: 1.57 GW, up from about 375 MW in 2020 (official factsheet, reported by IANS, 14 September 2026).
- New capacity expected by 2030: 3,860 MW, of which 509 MW under construction and 3,351 MW in planning (Cushman and Wakefield, September 2026).
- Capital needed for that new capacity through 2030: 29.9 billion US dollars (Cushman and Wakefield, September 2026).
- Mumbai: 890 MW operating, about 50 percent of the national total, pipeline about 1,700 MW (Cushman and Wakefield, H1 2026).
- Chennai: 214 MW operating, 368 MW pipeline (Cushman and Wakefield, H1 2026).
- Delhi NCR: 183 MW operating, 387 MW pipeline (Cushman and Wakefield, H1 2026).
- Hyderabad: 151 MW operating, 710 MW pipeline (Cushman and Wakefield, H1 2026).
- Capacity added in the top seven markets in H1 2026: 178 MW; colocation vacancy 14.9 percent (Cushman and Wakefield, September 2026).
- Visakhapatnam: Google AI hub, reportedly 1 GW, 15 billion US dollars; foundation stone 28 April 2026 (UPI, 14 October 2025; Drishti IAS, 29 April 2026).
- Odisha: HCLTech and Sarvam AI data centre project of 1.5 billion US dollars (mentioned in Angel One News, 29 July 2026).
- AI data centre electricity demand by FY32: 26.3 GW (written reply by the Minister of State for Power, as reported by Angel One News, 29 July 2026).
- Total data centre capacity forecast: 2.2 GW in 2025 to 12 GW in 2030; AI dedicated capacity from 275 MW to 6,546 MW (news reports cited by Angel One News, 29 July 2026).
How to read these numbers
A few terms first. A megawatt (MW) is a measure of electrical power. Data centre capacity is usually quoted in megawatts of power the facility can deliver to its computers. A gigawatt (GW) is 1,000 MW. Operating capacity is what is built and available. Pipeline, or upcoming supply, is everything announced or planned, and may include land that has only been bought. Colocation means renting space and power in a building run by a specialist operator, as opposed to a company building its own facility. Vacancy is the share of colocation capacity not yet rented.
Two things follow. Different trackers count differently, so a figure of 1.57 GW from an official factsheet and 1,789 MW from a property consultant are close but not the same, and neither is wrong. And a pipeline number tells you about intent. Only the part marked under construction is physically under way. Of the 3,860 MW expected by 2030 according to Cushman and Wakefield, 509 MW was under construction when the report was written, about 13 percent by simple division. The other 3,351 MW was in planning.
Mumbai: the anchor
Mumbai is India's largest data centre market by operating capacity, on Cushman and Wakefield's figures. The firm, as reported by ANI on 16 September 2026, puts Mumbai's operating capacity at 890 MW, about half the national figure, with a pipeline of about 1,700 MW and an expectation that it would cross 1 GW operating by the end of 2026.
By simple arithmetic from those numbers, the pipeline is about 1.9 times the operating base. Mumbai is therefore expected to grow but also to become less dominant. If its whole pipeline were built and the other cities' pipelines too, its share of the new 3,165 MW across the four named cities would be about 54 percent, close to today's share.
Why Mumbai? The capacity reports cited here do not give a reason, so none is asserted. The Google Visakhapatnam coverage says new cables there add route diversity to existing landings in Mumbai and Chennai, which confirms that Mumbai and Chennai are existing cable gateways. A cable landing station is the building where an undersea cable comes ashore and joins land networks.
Amazon's cloud also has a presence. W.Media reports that AWS operates two cloud regions in India, in Mumbai and Hyderabad, as of its 11 December 2025 report.
Chennai and Delhi NCR: the established second tier
Chennai has 214 MW operating and a 368 MW pipeline, according to the same report. That is about 1.7 times growth if all the pipeline arrives. Delhi NCR (the National Capital Region around the capital) has 183 MW operating and 387 MW upcoming, which the ANI article describes as future supply, a growth multiple of about 2.1 by simple arithmetic.
Microsoft, according to HCA Magazine, plans to expand its existing cloud regions in Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune as part of its 17.5 billion dollar plan announced in December 2025. So Chennai appears both in the tracker data and in a named company plan. The article does not say how much of the money goes to Chennai.
Chennai also hosts subsea cable landings, as noted. The data shows Chennai and Delhi NCR growing at a more modest pace than Hyderabad.
Hyderabad: the fastest growing pipeline
Hyderabad is the city where the data and the corporate announcements agree. Operating capacity is 151 MW and the upcoming pipeline is 710 MW, about 4.7 times the current base by simple arithmetic. That is the largest growth multiple among the four named cities, though from a smaller base.
Several announcements point in the same direction. HCA Magazine reports that Microsoft's planned India South Central region in Hyderabad would have three availability zones and be Microsoft's largest hyperscale region in India, due in mid 2026. An availability zone is a separate building with its own power and cooling, grouped with others in a region so that one failure does not stop service. W.Media lists Hyderabad as one of the two existing AWS regions in India. The National Informatics Centre, the government's technology arm, runs a National Data Centre in Hyderabad, per the official factsheet reported by IANS on 14 September 2026, alongside others in Delhi, Pune and Bhubaneswar and 37 smaller ones in state capitals.
The caveat is the same as everywhere. As of 19 October 2026, none of the pages used for this article confirmed that Microsoft's Hyderabad region has gone live, and a pipeline number includes projects at every stage.
Visakhapatnam: the Google hub and a new cable gateway
Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh on the Bay of Bengal coast, is the best documented new hub. UPI reported on 14 October 2025 that Google Cloud's chief executive announced a 15 billion US dollar AI hub there, reportedly 1 GW, and that part of the money funds a new international subsea gateway with several cables. An Andhra Pradesh minister and an Economic Times report cited 10 billion dollars for the same 1 GW project, so the figure is disputed.
Drishti IAS reported on 29 April 2026 that the state's chief minister laid the foundation stone on 28 April 2026 for a site of 601.4 acres spread over three locations in the Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli districts. Partners named are AdaniConneX and Nxtra by Airtel. The same report says a cable landing station in the city would link it to Google's cloud and AI platforms in the United States, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and that about 3,000 direct technical jobs and up to 30,000 in all are expected. It also says Adani will supply clean energy infrastructure as part of its wider plans.
To judge scale, compare 1 GW with the numbers above. India's whole operating base was 1,789 MW in the first half of 2026. A fully built 1 GW site would be more than half of that, in a city that does not appear in the Cushman and Wakefield list of operating markets. It would also be larger than the entire current pipeline of Chennai, Delhi NCR or Hyderabad. Whether it arrives in phases, and over how many years, is not stated in the sources reviewed. The size alone shows why Andhra Pradesh is treated as a new hub rather than an extension of an old one.
Odisha and the long tail of states
Beyond the big cities, projects are being announced in states with little existing capacity. Angel One News, reporting on 29 July 2026, mentions a 1.5 billion US dollar project in Odisha by HCLTech and Sarvam AI, in the same passage as the Google project. The article does not say where in Odisha, how many megawatts, or when. The National Informatics Centre also runs a National Data Centre in Bhubaneswar, the Odisha capital, according to the official factsheet.
The factsheet reported by IANS on 14 September 2026 says the National Informatics Centre operates National Data Centres in Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar, plus 37 smaller data centres in state capitals. That is government computing capacity, separate from the commercial market, and a reminder that the map has a public sector layer.
For the national picture of the mission and capacity, see the existing article on India's AI data centres.
Power and the map
Where capacity goes depends on where electricity can be delivered. The Minister of State for Power's written reply, reported by Angel One News on 29 July 2026, projects that AI data centres will add 26.3 GW to demand by FY32 (the financial year ending March 2032), met largely by renewable energy. In March 2026 the government had projected 13.56 GW for the same year, so the number roughly doubled in a few months. The same article says the Central Electricity Authority projects peak national demand rising from 289 GW in FY27 to 388 GW in FY32, and cites news reports of total data centre capacity rising from 2.2 GW in 2025 to 12 GW in 2030 and AI dedicated capacity from 275 MW to 6,546 MW. The article names no state level demand figures.
Put plainly, the capacity forecasts disagree by a wide margin. Cushman and Wakefield's data implies about 5.6 GW by 2030 if all 3,860 MW of new supply is added to the 1,789 MW base. The official factsheet projects nearly 8 GW. The news reports cited by Angel One say 12 GW. Each figure uses different counting and dates.
For readers who want to understand what a gigawatt costs to build, our article on cost per megawatt and per gigawatt covers the money side. For the pledges behind some of these projects, see India's AI investment pledges decoded, and for the rules that keep some data in the country, see the guide to what must stay in India.
A note on reading city rankings
Rankings by operating megawatts reward cities that started early, and rankings by pipeline reward cities with large announced projects. Neither measures how quickly a city will turn plans into running capacity. Three simple checks help. Look at the share under construction, because that is the part with contractors on site. Look at whether a named customer or operator is attached, as with Microsoft in Hyderabad or Google in Visakhapatnam, because a named anchor customer makes a project more likely to proceed. And look at power, since a site without a grid connection or supply agreement cannot run. None of the sources reviewed gives these three facts for every city, which is why this article treats the pipeline as an upper bound.
What is firm and what is uncertain
Firm, because a named tracker, company or government source states it:
- Operating capacity of 1,789 MW in H1 2026 and the four city figures from Cushman and Wakefield.
- The Google hub's 28 April 2026 foundation stone and 601.4 acre site.
- Microsoft's plan to expand its Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune presence, and AWS's two regions in Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Reported but method dependent:
- National capacity of 1.57 GW versus 1,789 MW, and 2030 forecasts from about 5.6 to 12 GW.
- The AI dedicated capacity forecast of 6,546 MW, from news reports.
Uncertain or disputed:
- The Google project's cost, 10 versus 15 billion dollars.
- Whether Microsoft's Hyderabad region is live as of 19 October 2026.
- The size, location and timing of the Odisha project.
- Power supply for each new hub, since the sources give no state level demand.
- How much of each city's pipeline is under construction rather than planned.
What to watch next
- The next Cushman and Wakefield and CBRE half year reports, to see whether Hyderabad's 710 MW pipeline moves into construction.
- Commissioning dates for each phase of the Visakhapatnam hub and the cable landing.
- Any details on the Odisha project: site, megawatts and power source.
- State level power plans that show how new demand will be served.
- Confirmation of the Microsoft Hyderabad region going live.
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Quick check
Which Indian city has the most data centre capacity?
Mumbai, with 890 MW operating in the first half of 2026, about half the national total of 1,789 MW, according to Cushman and Wakefield as reported by ANI on 16 September 2026.
Which city has the fastest growing pipeline?
Hyderabad, among the four named markets: 151 MW operating against a 710 MW pipeline, about 4.7 times, on simple arithmetic from the same report. Pipeline is planned capacity, not built capacity.
Is the Google Visakhapatnam hub built?
No. A foundation stone was laid on 28 April 2026, according to Drishti IAS. The reports cited give no operating date for any phase.
Sources
- India to add 3,860 MW data centre capacity by 2030, ANI via Deccan Chronicle, 16 September 2026
- India's data centre capacity likely to touch GW by 2030, IANS via New Kerala, 14 September 2026
- India's AI data centre power demand to reach 26.3 GW by FY32, Angel One News, 29 July 2026
- Google to invest 15 billion dollars in Visakhapatnam AI hub, UPI, 14 October 2025
- Google's 1.35 lakh crore AI data centre in Visakhapatnam, Drishti IAS, 29 April 2026
- Microsoft announces 17.5 billion dollar investment in India, HCA Magazine, 19 December 2025
- Amazon plans to invest 35 billion dollars in India by 2030, W.Media, 11 December 2025
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
