Sanjeev Sharma, country head and managing director of ABB India, on Thursday, said that the data centre is a billion-dollar opportunity in India.

With India recovering from the second wave of COVID, the country's capital expenditure cycle has turned a corner. Economists and analysts now suggest there are evident signs of revival in capex, though a full-fledged return is still over a year away.

“Data centre is almost a billion-dollar kind of opportunity in the country at this point of time and it is going to grow rapidly as we go forward. The data centre has computers and servers essentially, but they need to be fed with a lot of power and that's exactly where we come in. So, all power infrastructure that goes into data centres, most of our customers who are using very large data centres, we see a lot of reliance from their side on our products and our portfolio. So, a core part of power supply that goes into data centres comes from us,” Sharma said, in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

Also Read: How the Pandemic is Transforming the Data Center

On growth, he said, “Compared to the previous year cycle, we do see core sectors growing in the areas of coal, natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement, electricity; consumption definitely is high there. The next green area, which could still give double digits but lower double-digit growth, we see food and beverage, pharma, data centres, railways and metro, power distribution, automotive, buildings and infrastructure, they are tracking well.”

According to him, order conversions are in the same range as market engagement. “Our exposure to these market segments, which I mentioned, is high and that is how we see the attraction of it. So, our order conversion is at the same rate in terms of the market segment engagement that we have,” said Sharma.

For the entire management interview, watch the video

(Edited by : Dipika Ghosh)