Blackstone Group has ventured into the data centre business with a planned capacity of 600 MW across two large hyperscale data centres in India. The New York-based investor has set up Lumina CloudInfra, a data centre platform, which will be owned and managed by Blackstone’s Real Estate and Tactical Opportunities funds.
“The data centre sector is anchored by strong demand for data creation and storage around the world, particularly in India where many of the fastest-growing companies are based,” Lumina Chief Executive Officer, Anil Reddy was quoted saying.
Data centres will be the fourth vertical that Blackstone has set up in India after commercial real estate, retail venture Nexus Malls and Horizon Industrial Parks, which was launched in 2021.
Jasvinder Khaira, Head of Digital Infrastructure at Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities Group said, “The foray into data centre business through Lumina showcases Blackstone’s strengths, scale, network, and sector expertise, to address India’s growing demand for mission critical data infrastructure.”
The planned 600 MW data centre capacity will come up in Mumbai and Chennai. In Navi Mumbai, Blackstone is in an advanced stage of acquiring two data centres in Airoli and Mahape, and in Chennai, it is in the process to acquire a land parcel to set up a centre. It will also expand to Pune, Hyderabad, and National Capital Region (NCR)
at a later date.