The Bengal government is exploring the possibility of setting up a high performance computing lab in the state in a bid to help small entrepreneurs and start-ups get access to high performance computing, ideally on an operating expenditure model.
According to a government source, the state’s nodal agency for IT infrastructure, Webel, is planning to offer high performance computing as a service in Siliguri where it already has an IT park.
This comes amid an increasing demand for high performance GPUs (graphics processing units) for complex computing as well as deployment of artificial intelligence.
Such a facility in the state could be a key draw for both existing companies as well as new ones. A tender is likely to be floated shortly for setting up the infrastructure once the project scope and details are finalised.
The state’s primary data centre is located in Salt Lake and one of the reasons for selecting Siliguri is to spread out the IT infrastructure across the state rather than concentrating in Calcutta itself.
NTT data centre
The first phase of the proposed data centre project by NTT in the city is expected to be operational by March 2024
“We are targeting to begin the first phase of the Calcutta data centre by March 2024. The initial capacity is expected to be 6 MW,” Shekhar Sharma, CEO and MD of NTT Global Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure India, said on the sidelines of the ICT East event organised by the CII.
The company has the potential to ramp up its IT load capacity to 25 MW in the coming months. It will, however, depend on the demand.
The company has 7.5 acres of land in Silicon Valley Hub in New Town. The company officials met the state IT minister Babul Supriyo on Tuesday.
NTT currently has an installed capacity of a total of around 200 MW in 16 data centres spread across India.
The capacity will be ramped up as the demand for data centres is growing rapidly from several sectors, including cloud services, e-commerce, gaming, public services, big data and artificial intelligence.
He said the Calcutta data centre project has an investment potential of Rs 2,000 crore over the next five years.
