Meta to set up first data centre in India? Could cost ‘between 500-1,200 crore’

Facebook parent Meta may start its first data centre in India focussed on the growing demand for its short video feature Reels in its largest market, it was reported. The company will start a “feasibility study in the first quarter of 2024”, Moneycontrol reported citing people in the know.

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"Meta is evaluating deploying a small data centre. It could be a cache-focussed 10-20 megawatt data centre," it added. The investment plan was not given but the report said that industry experts believe that the average cost of setting up a Tier-4 data centre in India is around ₹50-60 crore- the highest quality ones with more than 99.99 percent uptime.

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The report claimed, “If Meta goes ahead with setting up its first data centre in India with a capacity of 10-20 MW, its investment in the project could be in the range of ₹500-1,200 crore.”

In India, Instagram Reels had its first broad rollout in July 2020 after the suspension of ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok in the country. The feature was rolled out globally in subsequent months by Meta. India is a crucial market for Instagram and as per app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, TikTok and Instagram have competed for the top spot in terms of total global downloads in 2023.

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Sensor Tower said in a report released in December 2023, “A pivotal factor contributing to Instagram's popularity in India has been TikTok's ban in the country in 2020. Instagram Reels has effectively filled the void left by the ban of TikTok, offering users a comparable platform for creating and sharing short-form videos.”