Why L&T is Focussing on Core Locations Like Chennai for Data Centres

The data centre industry may be exploring tier 2 and 3 cities for future deployments, but L&T’s Cloudfiniti has chosen to expand its capacity in core markets for now. L&T-Cloudfiniti SPD1 is the company's latest advanced AI ready data centre located in the strategic hub of Sriperumbudur, Chennai. 

Spanning across about 4,00,000 sq ft of built-up area, the SPD1 is designed with a scalable power capacity of 30 MW and storage capabilities exceeding three petabytes (PB) to meet diverse customer and AI workloads.

It sits 65 meters above sea level in a non-flooding zone and offers connectivity to both Bangalore and Chennai, along with abundant power supply.

While L&T is evaluating edge opportunities, the business is prioritising the core, said Seema Ambastha, CEO - L&T Datacentre and Cloud Services. “We believe in building to market demand. Right now, demand is still high in core locations,” she told AIM.

Why Core over Edge- For Now?

L&T is exploring edge deployments in tier-2 cities like Jaipur, Kochi, and Coimbatore, but, “priority remains on building scalable, core data centre campuses of 30 to 80 MW — and eventually 200 MW,” said Ambastha. 

“India’s digital growth, conversational commerce, AI, and the push for localisation and personalisation—especially for regulatory compliance—are driving demand,” she added. 

For L&T, long-term success hinges on three pillars—mainly land parcels, engineering talent and good quality capex. L&T’s late entry into the data centre market—in 2022–23—has been turned into an advantage. “That gave us a chance to build smart from the start,”Ambastha said. 

Cloudfiniti offers both, sovereign cloud and high-performance computing (HPC) solutions, especially for industries that need low-latency and high compliance. It is a purpose-built and scalable facility spanning six floors, each with about 6 MW of capacity, including floors dedicated to AI and one liquid-cooled floor that can handle up to 80 kW per rack.

Strategic AI Partnerships

Ambastha said the company is also working with AI partners across the stack and with sector-specific innovators like Hanuman to co-develop practical, AI-enabled solutions. 

SPD1’s current offerings serve sectors like BFSI, retail, and government, with one major Indian AI startup already using their platform, though the partnership hasn’t been officially announced.

On the infrastructure side, Cloudfiniti uses top-tier servers, high-performance NVIDIA GPUs (including A100s and H100s), and plans to upgrade to next-gen models like the B200s and B300s to meet rising demand. 

“We’re building AI-native data centers with high-density GPU workloads, liquid cooling, and distributed edge inference. We're also bringing technologies into India that aren’t here yet, to make them more robust and affordable,” Ambastha said.

Besides, L&T is also focusing on innovative, strategic partnerships. An example would be L&T’s investment in E2E Networks, a provider of advanced cloud GPUs.

Quantum and Beyond

Furthermore, L&T has its eyes on the next frontier of quantum computing. “We aim to be early movers in quantum computing. It’s critical for India, and we plan to host quantum infrastructure at our Chennai facility,”Ambastha said. 

“We’ve just announced our partnership with QPi AI, who are building a 25-qubit quantum system.”

The company is embracing a multi-source renewable strategy that includes solar, hydro, and green power purchase agreements (PPAs). From day one, L&T aims for at least 50% green energy usage in its new facilities, targeting 70% as occupancy rises. 

On the infrastructure side, L&T is moving away from the traditional monolithic approach to a modular architecture. Today, data centres are being built as large, monolithic structures. However, L&T is moving towards modular construction that will help optimise a lot of aspects within each module.