Google to launch first Indian data centre in 2017
Fri 30 Sep 2016
Google has announced its plans to set up a data centre in Mumbai, India, in hot pursuit of main rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft which already have regional cloud presence in the country.
At the Horizon event in San Francisco this week, Google said that the new facility, which will open in 2017, responds to an increasing demand for Google services in India. Nationally, Google dominates the market share for search, email and smartphones through Android. The U.S.-based company also has a major role in providing enterprise solutions in India but has fallen behind competitors AWS and Microsoft in terms of cloud services.
AWS operates three data centres in India (Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai), and counts more than 75,000 cloud customers in the country, including Tata Motors and ride-hailing app company Ola. Microsoft also has three Indian data centres offering Azure services from locations in Pune, Mumbai and Chennai.
Google, which already serves Indian customers such as Wipro, Dainik Bhaskar Group and Ashok Leyland over its cloud platform, hopes that the introduction of the new domestic presence will bring lower-latency access to cloud services, machine learning and networking infrastructure to these existing businesses, as well as to new organisations and developers.
Google is also aiming to respond to data sovereignty concerns and regulation, with domestic government and financial services increasingly weary of data travelling outside of national boundaries.
The tech giant continued that the addition would help promote growth among India’s startup community, providing a local full stack of services to support new companies build, test and deploy their applications.
A key location in Google’s expansion plans, the company has launched several India-based initiatives, including an offline-version of YouTube Go and free WiFi service Google Station which is looking to roll out connectivity in public spaces such as shopping centres, cafes and universities.
