The construction of data centres is set to accelerate in India in the next few years. With the size and capacity of these data centres growing, India is expected to see a massive spurt in jobs required in these data centres. This includes positions like data centre operations managers, network engineers, computer systems engineers, data centre electrical specialists, mechanical engineers and more. But companies will also need to hire for non-tech roles to fill customer-facing and ancillary positions.

A data centre is a part of a building or a building on its own where computer systems and associated components are kept so that they can store the vast amounts of data and applications available on the internet. Whenever you visit a website or download some data, the information was most likely stored in some data centre.

Today, data centres are critical infrastructure components in any country. Data centres operating in India include Dell, Accenture, NTT Global, IBM, Flipkart, ICICI, Capgemini, Wells Fargo, Oracle and Bharti Airtel.

Cloud service enterprises like Google and Amazon are also building their own cloud data centres in the country. Microsoft recently sealed a deal to build a Rs 15,000-crore data centre in Hyderabad over 50 acres of land. The new structure is expected to create around 300 jobs, reported Business Standard.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in this year’s Union Budget that data centres and energy storage systems will be tagged as infrastructure projects. Allowing these projects access to easier financing and lower interest is expected to boost the already considerable investment flowing into the segment.

“Going by the historical trend, about 40-50 percent of the total investment was funded by debt with average tenure of between 3-7 years. Given that data centre investment has a long gestation period (payback period of 3-6 years), access to cheap and long-duration funding was required. Granting infrastructure status to data centres would certainly pave the way for the same,” said Prashant Tarwadi, director, India Ratings and Research.

Ind-Ra estimates the data centre industry in India to grow to around Rs 70,000-72,000 crore over the next five years.

The government will also be pumping in investments to the tune of Rs 10,000-12,000 crore to companies through incentives. The funds would be used to set up data centres, reported The Economic Times.

This fillip provided to data centres is expected to create thousands of jobs in the coming years through all levels.

“There will be opportunities for employment from the construction stage of data centres till finally running them on an everyday basis," said Manoj Paul, managing director of US data centre firm Equinix, to the Mint.

The industry has already listed nearly 8,000 new positions in the past fortnight alone, reported the Mint. The demand is only expected to grow in the coming years and months.

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(Edited by : Thomas Abraham)