Industrial Automation Magazine India

Understand how this data centre will support India’s digital transformation journey with high-density ready infrastructure for seamless connectivity.

Chennai, January 12, 2024: Digital Connexion – a three-way joint venture between Brookfield Asset Management, Reliance Industries Limited and Digital Realty – has announced the launch of its first data centre campus catering up to 100 megawatt (MW) critical IT load capacity. It is located on a 10-acre campus in Chennai’s Ambattur Industrial Estate, an important industrial and manufacturing hub lntre, airport, and other major services.

The first phase of the data centre, MAA10, will offer 20MW of IT load and features a modular infrastructure design enabling customers to scale their infrastructure in response to varied workload demands, accommodating anything from single cabinet needs to multi-megawatt requirements. It is equipped to support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models. The facility also offers standardised configurations and ultra-high-power densities (up to 70 kilowatts per rack) to meet the high-density power, suitable cooling infrastructure, and interconnectivity demands of AI workloads.

 Inaugurating the data centre’s launch, Hon’ble Minister of Information Technology and Digital Services Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan, said, “I extend my sincere gratitude for the invitation to attend the inaugural ceremony of Digital Connexion's premier data centre. I am delighted to observe Chennai's rapid emergence as a highly sought-after hub for data centres within the Indian landscape. The convergence of entities such as Jio, Digital Realty, and Brookfield at this event is indeed a commendable collaboration.”

 CB Velayuthan, CEO of Digital Connexion said, “We are excited about the launch of our first data centre in Chennai. This 100 MW campus in Ambattur is ideal, given the availability of the necessary power supply, high number of submarine cable landing stations in the local area, and the state government's aspirations to make Chennai the top data centre hub in India. We look forward to making it a destination of choice for our customers, partners, cloud and service providers looking to expand their reach in India, starting with MAA10, the state-of-the-art first phase of this highly scalable campus.”

 MAA10 leverages Brookfield’s in-depth knowledge of the Indian infrastructure market, Digital Realty’s industry-leading energy-efficient data centre platform design and operating procedures, highly-repeatable Pervasive Data Centre Architecture (PDx®) approach and relationships with global customers, and Jio’s massive digital and connectivity ecosystem and very strong enterprise relationships.

 The facility is also a vital addition to PlatformDIGITAL®, Digital Realty’s global data centre platform hosting a rich connected data community of customers, partners, cloud and network service providers on a footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on 6 continents. It is slated to be ServiceFabric™-enabled this year, which will further allow customers to rapidly configure and provision connectivity across their digital infrastructure on-demand to fit their needs.