Reliance Industries has announced investment in Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Realty to develop data centers in India. Reliance will buy 33.33 percent stake in Brookfield and Digital Realty’s companies based in India. The proposed investment is Rs 378 crore, which can later be increased to Rs 622 crore as per the requirement. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in about 3 months.
The joint venture between Digital Realty Trust and Brookfield Infrastructure develops critical infrastructure for digital services companies in India. This joint venture deploys high-quality, highly-connected and on-demand scalable data centers. After this deal, Reliance will become an equal partner in this joint venture. The new joint venture will be rebranded as ‘Digital Connection: A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company’.
The Joint Venture (JV) is currently developing data centers in prime locations of Chennai and Mumbai. Reliance said in a statement that the JV’s first 20 megawatt (MW) greenfield data center (MAA10) at the 100 MW complex in Chennai is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The JV recently announced the acquisition of 2.15 acres of land in Mumbai to set up a 40 MW data centre.
Commenting on the deal, Kiran Thomas, CEO, Jio Platforms Limited, said, “We are extremely excited to partner with Digital Realty and our existing and trusted partner Brookfield. This partnership will allow us to provide our enterprise and SMB customers with state-of-the-art, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud and help them lead their digital transformation and make them more competitive and efficient. We would like to thank the Government of India for granting infrastructure status to data centers and creating a conducive ecosystem for their development and operations, which is critical to India’s vision of becoming a $1 trillion digital economy by 2025.