Microsoft Corporation, a US-based software giant, plans to construct a large hyperscale data centre in Pune as part of its multi-city data centre strategy for India, according to two people with direct knowledge of the development.
The company's India arm has reportedly bought a 25-acre land tract in the city's Pimpri-Waghere neighbourhood through an arrangement with Finolex Industries to transfer the long-term lease for about Rs 329 crore and wants to create the data centre on this plot, according to a news agency.
The news agency reports that in June, Mastercard Technology leased more than 400,000 square feet of space in a business building in Pune for 20 years, with monthly rent beginning at Rs 4.12 crore. With the help of robust supply completions and healthy pre-commitments, net absorption for India's office space for the first nine months of 2022 (January-September 2022) increased to a three-year high of 30.3 million sq ft. Net absorption for the July–September quarter grew 11% Q-o-Q to 9.86 million square feet, according to JLL's Office Market Update–Q3, 2022. In Pune, gross lease activity increased from 2.3 million square feet in Q1-Q3, 2021, to 3.7 million square feet in Q1-Q3, 2022, according to the report.
In 2015, Microsoft set up three Indian cloud locations in Mumbai (West India), Chennai (South India), and Pune (Central India). It expanded the India Central region in Pune, the only Indian Azure region with availability zones, by three in December 2021.
The company announced ambitions for a Hyderabad region earlier this year, though timelines weren't given.