Bharti Airtel Limited, known as Airtel, recently unveiled a refreshed brand identity, ‘Nxtra by Airtel’, for its data centre business and outlined investment plans to significantly scale up its data centre network to serve the requirements of India’s fast-growing digital economy. Airtel announced that its subsidiary Nxtra will invest Rs 5,000 crore by 2025 to scale up its data centre business.
Nxtra by Airtel aims to create new data centre parks in key metro cities. The investment will triple Nxtra by Airtel’s installed capacity to over 400 MW to meet the surging demand and consolidate its network leadership.
“Airtel has built the largest data centre network in India, and we are now doubling down on this business to scale up our network that will be at the core of 5G and Digital India. Our experience of operating secure data centres, deep brand trust in the enterprise segment and the ability to deliver end-to-end digital transformation solutions positions us well to serve the emerging requirements of India’s connected economy. The new brand identity embodies this vision and ambition,” said Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business.
Nxtra by Airtel has the largest network of data centres in India. It currently operates ten large and 120 edge data centres located strategically across India and manages critical submarine landing stations. Coupled with Airtel’s global network, it offers secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyper scalers, large Indian enterprises, start-ups, SMEs and governments.
Sustainability will continue to be its big focus, given the huge energy requirements of data centres. Nxtra by Airtel is already aggressively scaling up the use of green energy for its data centres and aims to source 50% of the power requirements of these centres through renewable sources as part of Airtel’s overall GHG emission reduction targets. Nxtra by Airtel also recently commissioned captive solar power plants in Uttar Pradesh & Maharashtra, with still more in the pipeline.
Airtel Business, the B2B unit of Airtel, is India’s leading provider of information communication technology services and offers a diverse portfolio of products and services covering voice, data, collaboration, work from home solutions, cloud, data centre, cyber security, IoT, network integration, managed services, enterprise mobility and digital media across a range of industries.
