Sterling & Wilson eyes 20% share in data centre market by 2020

The domestic data centre market, including the physical infrastructure, is pegged at around Rs 10,000 crore, of which the physical infrastructure segment is about Rs 4,000 crore.

"With the advent of technological innovations, the importance of data has become paramount, especially in terms of supporting infrastructure for its storage and processing among others.

"We expect this physical infrastructure data centre segment to grow at CAGR of 20-25 per cent in the next three years," Sterling & Wilson Data Centre Practices Head Prasanna Sarambale told PTI here.

He said the company has the capabilities to set up the entire infrastructure for data centres as well as manage and maintain them.

"Given a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20-25 per cent, we expect the physical data centre market to grow up to Rs 7,000 crore by 2020.

"Being one of the leaders in providing complete mechanical, electrical and plumbing solutions, we see a good opportunity to provide complete end-to-end solutions in this space," Sarambale said, adding the company hopes to corner at least 20 per cent of this market, from 10 per cent at present.

Since India is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud services, he said having local infrastructure can be a major advantage to cash in on this demand.

In India, the cloud services market is currently dominated by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google and IBM, with Alibaba being the latest entrant.

"These companies, along with other major players have huge plans to expand their presence by setting up data centres here. Besides, both Central and state governments are adopting digitalisation, which is a huge opportunity for a company like ours," Saramble said, adding recently they bagged a contract from the Rajasthan government to set up a data centre.

"Currently we have 75,000 sq ft of white space area built for IT/ITeS and government clients. Our order book for data centre division has grown by over 200 per cent over the past three years and stands at over Rs 400 crore now, to be executed over the next 18 months," he said.

The company is also developing data centres for Vodafone, NSE and Siemens.

"Our focus is to become a leader in the domestic market and with MNCs setting up their businesses here, we are hopeful that we will achieve the target by 2020. Later, we will also expand globally," Sarambale added.