India’s AI Future Will Ride on The Chennai Express

While it may not carry the tag of ‘Silicon Valley of India’ like Bangalore, Chennai, located just 300 kilometres away, has emerged as a dominant force in the country's growing AI ecosystem. With 19 data centres, the city ranks second in India for operational data centre capacity, behind Mumbai, which has 38 data centres.  As of June last year, the total operational data centre capacity in Chennai was estimated to be 88 megawatts (MW). Since then, major new establishments from CtrlS (72 MW data centre) and Sify have further increased this capacity.  The Coastal Advantage for Data Centres Mumbai and Chennai dominate India’s data centre landscape due to their coastal geography, which makes them best suited for undersea cable landing stations. These facilities connect