US tech giant Microsoft and the Telangana government have sealed a deal to set up a Rs 15,000-crore data centre in Hyderabad. A 50-acre land near the city is believed to have been finalised and the project is expected to create around 300 jobs.
A formal announcement is likely to come within a month. Telangana is one of the few states to adopt a data center policy in India. It also expects investments of around $10 billion in the segment over the next five years.
A few months ago, Telangana Minister for IT and Industries KT Rama Rao had kickstarted the discussions by initiating dialogues with the senior management of Microsoft.
One of the officials said, “The discussions are in the final stage. Certain issues — such as whether it would be a single location or multiple and the size of the investment — are yet to be finalised. Microsoft appears to be willing to go ahead with setting up a data centre here, though officially not confirmed.”
Set up in 1998 in Hyderabad, Microsoft India Development Centre is one of the largest R&D centres of the company outside of the US. The centre represents Microsoft's strategy of globally shared development to build products and services.
Besides Microsoft, other international players of the likes of Google and Amazon Web Services are strengthening their presence in the data centre segment in the country.
