Navi Mumbai
Where India’s first commercial data centre opened in 2000, and still the heaviest concentration of capacity in the country.
In Vayam’s reporting
Online before China? The 1995 boast, and the state decisions behind India's data centres
VSNL's Independence Day internet was not first in Asia. What it began was a chain of state choices, from STPI's earth stations to RBI's data rule, that private capital has filled ever since.
Why India's data centres live by the sea
Thirteen of India's eighteen international cables come ashore on one six-kilometre stretch of Mumbai. The compute followed the cables, and the next landings are on the east coast.
A fifth of the world's data, 2% of its data centres: checking India's favourite ratio
The ratio is in the Economic Survey and every industry deck. One half traces back to a sentence with no method. The other half depends on which denominator you pick.
Your ₹20 UPI payment is not allowed to leave India. That rule built buildings
Since April 2018 the RBI has required every payment record to be stored only in India. Follow one chai-stall QR scan and you find the anchor tenant of India's data-centre industry.
The building that drinks: India's data centres and the water nobody meters
India put its data centres in its thirstiest cities. After a 76% monsoon in the south, the industry's water bill is still a guess, and only one state has asked to see it.
A desk for the buildings with no windows
India's newest heavy industry has no chimney and no shift horn. It has land, power, water, subsidies and a cable landing. Why Vayam is opening a desk for it.