Microsoft has positioned its recently-operational Hyderabad cloud and data center region as a primary strategic hub serving both domestic enterprise demand across India and growing computing needs across the Global South. In a conversation with The Times of India on the sidelines of Microsoft AI Infrastructure Summit, Rajiv Kumar , managing director of India Development Center (IDC), explained how the company’s newest datacenter region in Hyderabad, explained the need for this expansion and how it will help in accelerating AI innovation and digital growth across the region.
“Microsoft has about 80 regions, and each region can have two or three data centers, depending on the resiliency we want to build. The Hyderabad expansion is a part of Microsoft’s $20.5 billion infrastructure commitment in India, which company CEO Satya Nadella announced across two phases totaling $3 billion and $17.5 billion over the last 14 months.
And how we decide on this is based on several factors,” Kumar said, adding, “It starts with the customer demand. And based on that, we picked Hyderabad, because in India, it happens to be the central location. ” “This is not just a data center, it is one of the strategic regions for Microsoft where most of almost all of Azure’s business can run. We clearly see customer demand from India and in the regional vicinity of Global South that’s close to India. Expanding more on sustainability, Kumar explained the specific architectural approaches used at the Hyderabad facility. The first is zero water usage. The facility relies primarily on air cooling, channeling chilled air directly across chip beds. The accompanying closed-loop water system avoids constant water consumption, removing a major operational strain on regional resources.