India / Bhārata: India's PowerGrid to build data facility in Manesar

PowerGrid, an Indian transmission corporation, plans to construct a data center on a substation site outside of Delhi. This week, PowerGrid's board authorized a revised investment proposal for the 'establishment of an experimental data center at PowerGrid Manesar Substation,' according to an announcement by SEBI. Through its wholly-owned division, Powergrid Teleservices Limited, the company said it would invest approximately $86.9 million in the initiative. Manesar is a municipality on the outskirts of Gurugram City in Haryana, to the south-west of Delhi.

PowerGrid, founded in the late 1980s and owned by the Indian government's Ministry of Power, focuses primarily on the transmission of bulk power across India's states. The overwhelming majority of the nation's interstate and interregional electric power transmission system is operated by the company.

Powertel, a subsidiary of PowerGrid, maintains a network of more than 47,700 kilometers of fiber along its power lines for transmission, as well as points of presence in 688 locations throughout India. PowerGrid announced late last year that it would spin off its telecoms vertical into a new wholly-owned subsidiary and establish data centers on land near substations.