Nxtra to Accelerate Data Center Business: Ashish Arora, CEO, Nxtra by Airtel We are investing INR 5,000 crore over the next three years, FY 2025-26 will be a defining year as we accelerate our leadership in India's data center landscape, says Ashish Arora, CEO – Nxtra by Airtel in an exclusive interaction with Entrepreneur India
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As humans continued to innovate through technomancy, it led to a new dawn. The techade that we are in, thrives on data and therefore the rise of data centres is inevitable. From the 1940s to 2025, data centers have evolved from mammoth machines to the sleek, efficient facilities we love. India is no exception to this transition. One of the homegrown data centers businesses, which is not only growing in size but is smarter, sustainable, and future-ready, is Nxtra by Airtel – with 14 core hyperscale data centers and over 120 edge facilities – all engineered with flexible designs to meet the evolving needs of both enterprises and end consumers. This FY, Nxtra expects to see a significant scale-up in AI-led workloads, with many capacities going live across India. "We are investing INR 5,000 crore over the next three years to double our capacity to 400MW by 2027, ensuring that we are ready to meet the explosive growth in AI-led and high-density workloads across the country," said Ashish Arora, CEO – Nxtra by Airtel.
"At Nxtra, relentless innovation and a strong ESG focus drive us forward. We are not just keeping pace with change—we are leading it, empowering our customers to scale confidently in an ever-evolving digital world. FY 2025-26 will be a defining year as we accelerate our leadership in India's data center landscape," he added.
India's digital economy is entering a transformative phase, fueled by rapid digitization, accelerated AI adoption, and soaring Cloud consumption. This momentum is creating unprecedented demand for scalable, secure, and sustainable data center infrastructure—particularly from hyperscalers, fintechs, and digital-first enterprises. Nxtra intends to leverage this opportunity with an aggressive growth strategy to double its capacity and emerge as the market leader in the coming years.
The company addresses the spectrum of Cloud requirements to handle high-density, AI-driven workloads for both public Cloud deployments for hyperscalers and private Cloud solutions to enterprises. On the edge, Nxtra stands out as the only data center provider with a presence in over 65 cities, and is rapidly expanding into additional locations to serve the rising demand for low-latency applications and local content delivery.
This strategic mix of hyperscale and edge infrastructure is working in Nxtra's favour as a partner of choice for enterprises, hyperscalers, and digital innovators, the CEO believes. However, one of the major challenges is ensuring that public grids and supporting infrastructure can keep pace with the rising power requirements of large-scale data centers. "While we are ready to scale, it's essential for the broader ecosystem to evolve in parallel. Fast-tracking the process of land acquisition and approvals through a streamlines, single-window system would significantly accelerate the development of new facilities and help India maintain its competitive edge in the digital economy," Arora explained.
"Our focus is on setting new industry standards for intelligent, green, and future-ready digital infrastructure, empowering India's next wave of digital innovation," the CEO concluded.
