New Delhi, April 22 -- If data is the fuel that powers the digital revolution, data centres are the tanks in which they are stored, primed and kept ready for use when needed. This is why any country looking to play a role in the digital future of the world has no choice but to make sure it has the capacity of a data centre to support that ambition.

Today, India's operational data centre capacity stands at about 1.25 gigawatts (GW). This is likely to grow to 3.4-3.5GW by 2030 at best. We trail far behind the US, where, in Ashburn, Virginia, alone, there is 4.5GW worth of data centre capacity that is on track to grow to 15GW.

If India wants to be competitive in artificial intelligence (AI), it must scale up to at least 5GW by 2030 and 35G...