RIL acquire 33.33 pc stake in Brookfield Infra-Digital Realty data center business in India

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 24 : Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) on Monday acquired 33.33 pc stake in Brookfield Infra-Digital Realty data center business in India.
RIL entered into an agreement with Brookfield Infra and Digital Realty in their Indian SPVs set up for developing data centres in India. 
As per the RIL’s official statement, it will hold a 33.33 per cent stake in each of the Indian SPVs and become an equal partner.
Digital Realty Trust Inc. is the largest provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions globally with over 300 data centres across 27 countries.  They have a joint venture (JV) with Brookfield Infrastructure that is developing data centres in India.  The JV will be branded as ‘Digital Connexion: A Brookfield, Jio and Digital Realty Company’. It is currently developing data centres in Chennai and Mumbai.
The JV’s first 20 megawatts (MW) greenfield data centre (MAA10), on a 100 MW campus 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 build a 40 MW data center. The data centres will be connected to critical terrestrial connectivity infrastructure, as well as undersea cables, and will become hubs for global connectivity for Indian companies and gateways into India for multi-national companies.
Speaking about the transaction, Kiran Thomas, CEO, of Jio Platforms Limited, said that the partnership will help the company serve its enterprise and SMB clients with cutting-edge, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud and lead their digital transformation and make them more competitive and efficient.
“We are excited to partner with Digital Realty, one of the most innovative data centre companies globally and with Brookfield, our existing and trusted partner. The unique and highly engaging consumer and home experiences that we are offering and further innovating on, such as high-definition live content, AR / VR experiences, cloud gaming, immersive shopping experiences and cloud PC have massive compute capacity requirements. We would like to thank the Indian government for granting infrastructure status to data centers and for creating a favourable ecosystem for their development and operations, which is critical for India’s vision to become a $1 Trillion digital economy by 2025,” Thomas said.
Arpit Agrawal, Managing Director, Head of Infrastructure, India & Middle East, Brookfield, said that they are looking forward to providing the best solutions to the digital transformation needs of Indian and global corporates
“We are very pleased to expand our existing partnership with Reliance and add their deep expertise in the Indian telecom, tech and data landscape to the platform. Data Centers provide essential services and critical infrastructure to support the digitalization that is taking place in every aspect of life in India. Together with Reliance and Digital Realty, we look forward to providing the best of solutions to the digital transformation needs of Indian and global corporates,” Arpit Agrawal said.
Serene Nah, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific, Digital Realty, said, “India is a mostly untapped market for the data center industry driven by the rapid adoption of digital business models, the world’s largest population, and a government that recognizes the role of technology for future economic development. This joint venture brings together three global leaders in digital infrastructure to accelerate Digital India by developing, owning and operating institutional quality carrier-and cloud-neutral data centers across India.”
However, the RIL said that the JV will be well positioned to serve global and local enterprises, SMBs and the vibrant startups of India, for their cloud and colocation requirements as they move their compute resources on the cloud and off-premise.