A fifth of the world's data, 2% of its data centres: checking India's favourite ratio

Twenty per cent of the world's data. Two per cent of the world's data centre capacity. For every ten units India is said to make, it has room to keep about one. The ratio has appeared in the Economic Survey, a NITI Aayog workshop, a Deloitte report and most decks written about this sector since 2024. One half of it is measured. The other half, as far as we can find, is not.

Start with the half you can check in your pocket. Ericsson's Mobility Report puts the average smartphone in the India region (India, Nepal and Bhutan) at 37 GB of mobile data a month at the end of 2025. The global average was 22 GB. For every gigabyte the average phone on earth moves, a phone here moves 1.7.

That is heavy use. It is not the same thing as a fifth of the world's data.

Follow the footnote on 'a fifth'

KPMG's July 2026 data centre report says India "produces about one fifth of global data". Its footnote points to a Ministry of Finance release of 29 January 2026, which is the Economic Survey. The Survey, paragraph 7.35, says India generates "nearly 20 per cent of the world's data", and attributes the sentence to Nasscom. A Nasscom community post from September 2024 states "about 20% of the global data". It gives no method and no source.

Three institutions, one number, zero measurements. We found no statistical agency, in India or abroad, that counts data generated by country. Traffic is counted; payments are counted; storage is sold by the megawatt. Read "a fifth" as a plausible order of magnitude that travels well, not as a statistic.

The other half, and its three denominators

The same Survey sentence says India hosts "only about 3 per cent of global data centres, around 150 out of 11,000 worldwide". That is a count of buildings. A hyperscale hall in Navi Mumbai and a server room in a state office count as one each.

KPMG measures capacity instead: about 2 per cent of a global 90 to 100 GW in FY26 in its table, "2-3 per cent" in its text. The Takshashila Institution, in October 2025, put India at about 1 per cent: 1.2 GW against 114 GW globally. Three denominators, three answers. All say small. None says the same small.

What CBRE counts

Vayam uses CBRE as its house series. On CBRE's count, India's operational stock was 1,255 MW in September 2024 and 1,530 MW in September 2025. The country crossed 1,700 MW at the end of 2025 after a record 440 MW was added in the year, 160 per cent more than in 2024. In the first half of 2026 it added about 130 MW. CBRE expects more than 200 MW in the second half, which would take the total to roughly 2 GW. Mumbai took 94 per cent of the H1 additions and holds 52 per cent of the stock. (What a "megawatt" of data centre actually measures is here.)

One footnote of its own. In December 2024, CBRE projected 2,070 MW by the end of 2025. The year closed a little above 1,700. The forecast ran about 370 MW ahead of the concrete.

Promises, priced

The money moves faster than the buildings. CBRE counted USD 60.3 billion of commitments from 2019 to 2024, about USD 94 billion by September 2025, and USD 126 billion by the end of 2025, of which USD 56.4 billion came in 2025 alone. Its September 2026 report counts about USD 173 billion since 2021, including USD 38 billion in the first half of 2026.

Put CBRE next to CBRE. In H1 2026, USD 38 billion was committed and about 130 MW went live: roughly USD 290 million of promises per megawatt delivered. Manoj Menda of RMZ told Moneycontrol that a megawatt costs USD 8 to 10 million to build. At that rate, USD 173 billion would build 17 to 22 GW, about ten times what operates today.

Revenue is a different house and a different thing. KPMG sizes the Indian data centre market at about USD 1.7 billion in FY26 (₹14,000 crore), rising to about USD 6.8 billion by FY30. CBRE counts announcements; KPMG counts money billed. The 2025 commitments alone equal about 33 years of FY26 revenue. That is what the front end of a land-grab looks like: promises in tens of billions, a market billing in single billions.

What the numbers don't tell you

How much was built in the first half of 2026? CBRE says about 130 MW. Cushman & Wakefield says 178 MW. Savills says 258 MW. Same six months, same country; the largest is about double the smallest. Each house draws its boundary differently, which is why Vayam never averages them.

There is no statistical authority here. Even the Economic Survey relied on "industry estimates" for its capacity figure. The numbers also don't say how full the buildings are; Cushman puts colocation vacancy at 14.9 per cent. And they don't say how much Indian data still sits abroad. One widely repeated estimate says 90 to 95 per cent. It carries no source either.

What to watch: CBRE's full-year 2026 count, due early next year. If the promised 200-plus MW lands, India reaches 2 GW. If it doesn't, the gap between commitments and concrete gets wider.