Social media giant Meta Platforms is planning to set up its first data centre in India, according to a report. The data centre will reportedly be located inside Reliance Industries (RIL) Chennai campus and will reduce reliance on servers outside of India allowing Meta’s key apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to process user-generated material locally, increasing speed and hopefully, enhancing privacy. The financials of the agreement are unknown at the time of writing.

The proposed data centre (via The Economic Times) will be located on the 10-acre campus (MAA10) in the Ambattur Industrial Estate of Chennai. This campus, a joint venture of RIL, Digital Realty and Brookfield Asset Management, has a maximum IT load capacity of up to 100 megawatts (MW).

Meta will be able to operate four to five nodes across multiple locations in the country which would help in faster data processing for the company. Currently, data from Indian users of Meta products is serviced at its data centre in Singapore but a centre in India will help in enhancing local advertisements to improve user experience and cut transmission costs, people in the know told the outlet.

Reportedly, the agreement between RIL and Meta was discussed during Anant Ambani’s pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar early last month.

Presently, the Indian users’ data of Meta is serviced at the tech giant’s Singapore centre. With plans to set up four to five nodes across several locations in India, the domestic facility is expected to strengthen Meta’s operational capabilities. It is further anticipated that the partnership will enhance data processing speed along with speedier information delivery.

Furthermore, it is anticipated that the incorporation of localised advertisement will enhance user satisfaction and reduce transmission expenses, hence yielding advantages for Meta and its user base.

While Facebook has 314.6 million users in India, Instagram has 350 million and WhatsApp has 480 million. The number of users in India is nearly double that in its home country the US.

Meta Platforms reported that its advertisement revenue from click-to-message ads in India, across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has doubled during the September 2023 quarter.

The MAA10 data centre campus is equipped to support AI language models, Digital Connexion said back in January when the facility was opened.

India’s data centre industry is expected to double capacity in the next three years, CareEdge Ratings said in a study. Currently, India has a data centre capacity share of only 3% globally despite generating 20% of the global data.

However, this is likely to change with the big tech companies like Meta and Google looking to localise data storage in India.

Earlier in February this year, media reports said Meta Platforms was planning to set up a 20-megawatt (MW) capacity centre for an investment of INR 500-1,200 crore.

According to an October 2023 CII-Colliers report, India’s data centre industry is expected to attract USD 10 billion in investment within the next three years, driven by an exponential increase in data consumption and an improving regulatory framework.

With the popularity of Instagram, especially in short video-format Reels, a data centre in India would help Meta improve user experience.

Meta had earlier invested USD 5.7 billion in Jio platforms in 2020 and thereby acquired a 9.99% stake in the Reliance subsidiary. Besides the Zuckerberg company, Google holds a 7.73% stake in the platform, and Qualcomm holds a 0.15% stake. Other companies with stakes in the Jio Platform are Interstellar Platform Holdings (0.39%), Intel Capital (0.39%), TPG Capital (0.93%), Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1.16%), General Atlantic (1.34%), Mubadala Investment Company (1.85%), Silver Lake (2.08%), Public Investment Fund Saudi Arabia (2.32%), Vista Equity Partners (2.32%), and KKR (2.32%). The largest stakeholder in the company is RIL, with 67.03% ownership.

Recently, several giants, including AdaniConnex, Reliance, Sify, Atlassian, Yotta, AWS, and Lenovo, have announced substantial investments in data centres across India. And, despite the concentration of data centres in tier 1 cities, the need for edge computing, the desire to be closer to customers and offer a faster response time and lower latency for time-sensitive applications, is fueling the expansion of data centres to tier 2, 3 and 4 cities.

Article Source – The Economic Times