India’s Data Centre Surge to Drive 3x Growth in Cooling Market: Govt White Paper

India’s data centre cooling market is poised for an exponential expansion, projected to more than triple in value to $7.13 billion by 2030, according to a newly released government white paper titled "Democratising Access to High-Performance Computing." 

The surge is driven by a massive increase in capacity and computational workloads that could see the sector’s share of national electricity consumption jump from 0.5% to nearly 3% within the next six years.

The report, published by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, highlighted a critical infrastructure shift. 

While the cooling market was valued at $2.1 billion in 2024, the rapid adoption of AI and high-performance computing has necessitated the need for more advanced and energy-intensive thermal management systems.

The report noted that as India positions itself as a global hub for data processing, the environmental and economic stakes are rising. The projected increase in electricity consumption—a six-fold proportional rise—underscores the urgent need for ‘green’ data centre technologies. 

Current cooling methods are being challenged by the high heat density of modern server racks, leading to a shift toward liquid cooling and other sustainable innovations.

The white paper emphasised that democratising access to computing power is essential for India’s digital sovereignty. 

Edge facilities are already being planned in regional hubs, including Jaipur, Coimbatore, and Chandigarh, helping decentralise compute capacity and reduce latency. 

These collaborative models are reinforced by targeted incentives that encourage private players to build on and integrate with national digital assets, including AIKosh, the Open Government Data Platform, and the National Data and Analytics Platform, thereby widening access to scalable AI infrastructure.

However, scaling AI data centres will require an additional 45-50 million sq ft of real estate by 2030, underscoring the need to integrate sustainability planning with compute expansion.

This growth requires a parallel focus on energy efficiency. The document suggested that without significant interventions in how data centres are cooled and powered, the sector's energy footprint could place unprecedented strain on the national grid.

The findings come at a time when the Indian government is aggressively promoting the IndiaAI Mission, which seeks to build a robust domestic computing stack.