At ET Edge Insights, we had the privilege of hosting Mr. Sunil Gupta, Co-founder and CEO Yotta Infrastructure for an exclusive interview conducted by Sunay Wanchu, Assistant Manager at ET Edge. The discussion is about Yotta’s growth journey and understanding the data centre landscape in India.
Mr Gupta shared that he has dedicated 25 years of his career to this industry, with a significant focus on data centres. This experience has allowed him to witness the industry’s evolution since its inception alongside the introduction of the internet in India. Data centres have become an integral part of the internet ecosystem. He highlighted a crucial shift: international cloud operators recognized that to tap into the Indian market, they needed to establish cloud centres within India. This approach aimed to combine infrastructure and IT to propel the industry forward, as data centres are essentially physical buildings with extensive power and cooling systems.
Yotta’s strategy encompasses three key elements: establishing large central data centres, offering a wide range of value-added services from these centres, and creating edge data centres that extend the reach to various fields. According to Mr. Gupta, this comprehensive approach aligns with the goals of Digital India.
Regarding sustainability and the commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, Mr. Gupta discussed two vital aspects: the type and amount of power used. Yotta, due to its scale, is obtaining its own power distribution licenses. This grants them full control over the type of power they use. At least 25% of the power consumed by their Mumbai and Delhi centres comes from green sources. Addressing the cooling aspect of data centres, Mr. Gupta emphasized the design’s role. Yotta has pioneered data centres with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.4. This means that for every unit of power used by IT equipment, only an additional 0.4 units are required for cooling. Yotta’s innovation has significantly reduced the power consumption benchmark from around 0.7 or 0.8 in India just a few years ago.
Mr. Gupta stressed the importance of indigenization for India’s progress. Yotta has not only constructed large-scale data centres but has also taken a significant step in supporting Digital India by developing its own indigenous cloud hosting platform. Over the past 1.5 years, a team of 200 Indian engineers has been building an open-source-based cloud, set to launch commercially in October with 50 services.
Delving into the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on data centres, Mr. Gupta highlighted that AI demands substantial storage and processing capabilities to handle the ever-increasing data generation. The growth of the data centre industry has been closely linked to the influence of AI. He anticipates a tenfold industry expansion in the next seven years, driven by AI, yet believes this growth won’t encompass AI’s full impact. To gain deeper insights into Yotta’s strategies and contributions to the data centre landscape, watch the enlightening interview.
