Mumbai ranks 15th globally for operational capacity and 11th for development pipeline, highlighting India’s rapid expansion into major Asia-Pacific data centre hubs amid increasing AI-driven demand and infrastructure needs.
Mumbai has emerged as one of the world’s most active data centre markets, ranking 15th globally for live operational capacity and 11th for development pipeline, according to Knight Frank’s Global Data Centre Atlas 2026. Hyderabad placed 27th for operational capacity but rose to 19th for future pipeline, underlining how quickly India’s digital infrastructure market is expanding.
Knight Frank said Mumbai now has 774 MW of live IT capacity and almost 5 GW in the pipeline, a scale the firm described as making the city India’s gateway data centre market and a major Asia-Pacific hub. Hyderabad, meanwhile, has 151 MW of live capacity and more than 2.2 GW in development, reflecting strong interest from cloud and hyperscale operators.
The rankings are based on two measures: live IT capacity, which covers power already installed in operating data centres, and pipeline IT capacity, which includes projects under construction, committed schemes and early-stage developments. In the global table, North American markets dominated the top five, with Ashburn in first place, followed by Columbus, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta. Tokyo ranked sixth, then London, Dublin, Chicago and Singapore.
Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director of Knight Frank India, said the country’s showing in the rankings demonstrated how rapidly it had become a strategic destination for digital infrastructure. He added that Mumbai’s position reflected years of investment in connectivity, enterprise demand and cloud infrastructure. But, he said, if India wants to break into the top 10, the priority must shift towards the supporting infrastructure, including faster power delivery, more renewable energy, transmission upgrades, quicker approvals and large development-ready sites.
The wider market backdrop is also supportive. Knight Frank has said in earlier research that the global data centre sector is being propelled by the AI boom, with capacity expected to almost double by 2028 from 62 GW to more than 110 GW. The consultancy has also warned that power availability is becoming the key constraint, while AI-related workloads are taking a larger share of total capacity and forcing operators and investors to commit unprecedented sums to new infrastructure.
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