Powergrid Teleservices, a subsidiary of government-owned Powergrid Corporation, has plans to venture into data centres amid increasing demand for data localisation in the country, including from public sector companies.

Powergrid Teleservices was carved out of the parent company Powergrid in October to focus and expand the telecom business, where power transmission infrastructure for overhauling bulk power is also being used for the expansion of the optical fibre network.

“Data centre is one area where we are getting into and shortly Powergrid should be coming out with its own set of data centres under the new name — PowerGrid Teleservices,” said Vamsi Rama Mohan Burra, CEO, Powergrid Teleservices, at Infocom 2023, the flagship event of the ABP group.

The company plans to undertake a pilot project in NCR with an initial capacity of 15 MW and simultaneously undertake studies to identify locations in other parts of the country as well.

“We understand power and we have a good set of IT engineers. There is a good demand and we also see a dearth of government provided data centres,” he said on the sidelines of Infocom as reasons for the foray into the data centre business.

Discussions are also underway with the department of telecommunications to offer current transmission infrastructure for long distance telecommunication network with the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

For Powergrid, the telecom business has garnered a revenue of Rs 729 crore in FY23 at a growth rate of 26 per cent, according to financial disclosures.

The company has set its sights on reaching a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore from this business in FY2024.