Mumbai is ranked 15th globally in operational data centre capacity and 11th in terms of development pipeline, while Hyderabad is placed 27th and 19th, respectively, according to the Knight Frank Global Data Centre Atlas 2026. The report, which compares as many as 36 major data centre markets across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, comes as the rapid adoption of cloud computing and artificial intelligence drives a fresh wave of investment in digital infrastructure.
Currently, Mumbai has 774 MW of live IT capacity, according to Knight Frank, making it India’s largest operational data centre market. The financial capital of India also has a development pipeline of nearly 5 GW, underlining the scale of investment expected to come online in the coming years.
The brokerage firm described Mumbai as India’s “gateway data centre market” and one of Asia-Pacific’s major digital infrastructure hubs, supported by its connectivity infrastructure, enterprise demand and established cloud ecosystem.
The development pipeline in Mumbai is more than six times its existing live capacity, showing that a significant expansion of India’s digital infrastructure footprint is already in the works.
Quoting Knight Frank India Chairman and Managing Director Shishir Baijal, news agency PTI reported that India’s presence in the global rankings shows how quickly the country has evolved into a strategic digital infrastructure destination.
According to Baijal, the financial hub’s position among the world’s leading operational markets is the result of years of investment in connectivity, enterprise demand and cloud infrastructure. However, he cautioned that moving into the world’s top 10 data centre markets would require India to address infrastructure constraints, particularly around power availability and transmission.
“Faster power provisioning, expansion of renewable energy capacity, accelerated transmission upgrades, streamlined approvals and the availability of large development-ready sites” will be critical to supporting the next phase of AI-led and hyperscale investment, Baijal said.
Hyderabad’s pipeline tells a different story
The position of Hyderabad is particularly notable because of the gap between its existing capacity and its future pipeline. According to the firm, the city has 151 MW of live IT capacity, placing it 27th globally. However, its development pipeline exceeds 2.2 GW, taking it to 19th place globally on future capacity.
These numbers mean Hyderabad’s planned capacity is roughly 15 times its existing operational base, compared with Mumbai’s pipeline of around 6.4 times its current live capacity. The numbers also point to a market that is still relatively early in its development cycle but is attracting substantial forward investment.
According to Knight Frank, Hyderabad has established itself as a preferred destination for hyperscale cloud providers because of the availability of large development parcels, proactive policy support, a growing technology ecosystem and competitive operating costs.
This gives the City of Pearls a different growth profile from Mumbai. While Mumbai’s position is anchored by connectivity and proximity to India’s financial and enterprise ecosystem, Hyderabad’s expansion is being driven by land availability, policy support and the ability to accommodate large-scale hyperscale developments.
Why Mumbai continues to dominate
The biggest structural advantage for Mumbai is the connectivity. The city serves as a major international connectivity hub, with subsea cable infrastructure and a large concentration of financial services, enterprises and cloud users. These factors make proximity to Mumbai particularly valuable for data centre operators seeking low-latency connections to large enterprise customers.
The firm’s assessment places Mumbai alongside established global gateway markets where connectivity and concentrated enterprise demand have helped create large data centre ecosystems.
Globally, the top five markets by operational IT capacity are all in North America, with Ashburn, Columbus, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta occupying the first five positions. Tokyo is sixth, followed by London, Dublin, Chicago and Singapore. Malaysia’s Johor ranks 11th, while Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Silicon Valley occupy the 12th, 13th and 14th positions, respectively.
Therefore, Mumbai’s 15th-place ranking puts the Indian city immediately behind several of the world’s most established data centre hubs.
India’s data centre map is expanding beyond Mumbai
The growth story, however, is no longer limited to Mumbai. Knight Frank said India’s data centre landscape is becoming increasingly diversified, with Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and the National Capital Region emerging as important markets alongside Mumbai.
Bengaluru continues to benefit from demand generated by Global Capability Centres (GCCs), research and development operations and enterprise colocation services, leveraging its established technology ecosystem, news agency ANI reported. Pune and the NCR are also expanding rapidly, with demand coming from sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and public cloud providers, it further said.
Chennai, meanwhile, is strengthening its position as a gateway for internet traffic to Southeast Asia. The city’s competitive power tariffs and supportive policy environment are adding to its appeal.
The news agency also identified Visakhapatnam and Jamnagar as emerging greenfield data centre destinations. Government initiatives and planned subsea cable connectivity could help these markets attract investment as operators look beyond established metropolitan hubs.
AI is changing the economics of data centres
The expansion comes against a much larger global shift in the data centre industry. According to Knight Frank’s analysis, it points to continued cloud migration and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence workloads as key drivers of demand. The consultant’s global data centre appraisals put the value of the stabilised global data centre market at $1.95 trillion, up 39.3% from 2024.
Around 48 GW of additional data centre capacity is expected to be delivered globally between 2026 and 2029, representing a 77% increase in supply volumes, according to the report.
AI is expected to account for an increasingly significant share of that expansion. AI-related capacity is projected to rise from around 8 GW to 27 GW, bringing it to roughly a quarter of total live IT capacity.
For India, this shift is particularly significant because AI workloads require data centres with substantially greater power density and more sophisticated cooling and energy infrastructure than conventional facilities.
The next constraint may not be demand – but power
The central challenge for India’s data centre expansion could therefore increasingly move away from finding customers and towards building the infrastructure required to serve them.
Knight Frank said India’s demand fundamentals remain strong, but future growth will depend on timely power availability, transmission infrastructure, faster approvals, expanded fibre connectivity, sustainable energy sourcing and larger campus-scale developments capable of supporting AI workloads.
From data centre demand to digital infrastructure race
The rankings reveal two different stages of India’s data centre expansion. Mumbai has already achieved global scale, ranking among the world’s top 15 markets by operational capacity. Its nearly 5 GW pipeline suggests that its position could strengthen further, provided infrastructure keeps pace.
Hyderabad represents the next wave, with a relatively small operational base but a development pipeline large enough to push it into the global top 20 for future capacity.
The bigger message from Knight Frank’s Atlas is that India’s data centre opportunity is no longer concentrated in a single city. As cloud computing and AI accelerate demand, operators are increasingly looking for multiple locations that can provide land, power, connectivity and favourable operating conditions.
For India to move from being a fast-growing data centre market to one of the world’s top digital infrastructure destinations, however, the next challenge will be execution.