



Mint Explainer | How India's data centre boom could strain its power infrastructure by 2030
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI: As India plans to set up 10 gigawatts (GW) of data centre capacity by 2030, demand for electricity is expected to surge. Mint explains how this will impact India’s power sector.
India has an installed data centre capacity of 1.2 GW, which will grow to about 10 GW by the end of this decade, with investments of over $200 billion, according to government estimates. India's cumulative data centre capacity may reach 8-10 GW by 2030, Samir Chandra Saxena, chairman and managing director of Grid India, said at the India AI Impact Summit earlier this week. Large data centres are expected to come up in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Data centres consume large volumes of power. India’s AI-linked data centre build-out is expected to require an additional 40-45 TWh (terawatt hours) of power in 2030, up from 10-15 TWh consumed in 2024. This would increase the share of data centres’ electricity consumption from 0.8% of the total to 2.5-3% by 2030, Niti Aayog said in a report.
According to Deloitte, a traditional data centre consumes 5-10 kW per rack, but AI-focused racks can require at least 10-15 times more power. Debasish Mishra, chief growth officer at Deloitte South Asia, said these data centres or clusters are likely to consume about 2 GW of power each around the clock and have the potential to change the demand profile of the area and the state, which can impact the national grid. India has an integrated power grid that connects five regional grids into a single, seamless, nationwide network to enable efficient power transmission across the country.
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