Greening Data Centres: Why India's Digital Infrastructure Boom Must Be Built on a Sustainable Foundation

Greening data centres is not a single-issue challenge that can be solved solely at the cooling tower. It encompasses renewable power procurement, grid availability, storage, hardware efficiency, cooling technology, equipment utilisation, circularity and sourcing decisions made well before a facility is commissioned.

September 22, 2026. By News Bureau

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articles

Karthik Narayanan Ramasubramanian

Ingram Micro India

Data centres

Sustainable Foundation

Digital infrastructure

Cloud adoption

International Energy Agency

India’s data centre industry is expanding at a pace few sectors can match. According to a recent Anarock Capital report, India’s data centre footprint is projected to exceed 101 million sq. ft. by 2030, while installed IT capacity could rise from more than 1.8 GW in the first half of 2026 to over 6.7 GW by the end of the decade. The sector’s expansion is supported by more than USD 300 billion in reported investment commitments and driven by cloud adoption, artificial intelligence, digital payments, data localisation and enterprise digitisation.

This is an extraordinary growth story by any measure. But expansion on this scale raises an equally important question that the industry can no longer treat as secondary: how sustainably will this infrastructure be built and operated? The public conversation around data centres and sustainability has focused heavily on their consumption of water and electricity.

Rapid data centre development is facing increasing scrutiny globally because of its impact on local power systems, water resources and carbon emissions. In India, the availability of reliable power is also emerging as a critical factor in supporting the country’s AI-driven data centre ambitions. India’s overall electricity demand is projected to grow considerably through the end of the decade, driven by economic activity, cooling requirements, electric vehicles, green hydrogen and data centres. Globally, the International Energy Agency expects data centre electricity consumption to more than double by 2030, with AI representing the most significant driver of that increase.

At the same time, the economics of clean energy are becoming increasingly favourable. Solar and wind power are already cost-competitive with conventional generation in many applications. More recent research indicates that firm and dispatchable renewable-energy projects combining solar, wind and energy storage could also match or undercut the cost of new thermal generation under the right commercial conditions.

This convergence creates a genuine window of opportunity. If data centre capacity is designed around renewable integration, storage and energy efficiency from the outset, rather than retrofitted later, India could expand its digital infrastructure without proportionately increasing its carbon emissions and dependence on thermal power.

This is where the technology supply chain not only data centre operators have an important role that is rarely discussed.

How can the Channel Ecosystem Help Shape Data Centre Sustainability?

Every data centre is built using components sourced through a broad distribution and channel ecosystem: servers, networking equipment, storage platforms, power-management systems and cooling infrastructure. The energy efficiency of this hardware, its power draw, compatibility with liquid or advanced air-cooling systems, and expected operational lifespan are influenced well before a facility goes live.

Distributors work closely with OEM partners on one side and systems integrators, solution providers and enterprise customers on the other. This places the channel in a position to influence outcomes during the design and specification stages encouraging energy-efficient architectures, workload consolidation and lifecycle optimisation rather than treating sustainability as an issue to be addressed only after the facility becomes operational.

This shift is not only about influencing external partner choices, but it also starts internally, too. At Ingram Micro, we have already begun applying this thinking to our own operations, increasing our consumption of solar energy by 71 percent in 2025 as part of a broader effort to reduce the energy footprint of our facilities before extending that same efficiency mindset across our partner ecosystem.

There is also a broader energy-system argument. A recent discussion at a Forum called for India to evolve from a “petro state” towards an “electro state”, as rising electricity demands from EVs, AI and data centres increase the need for round-the-clock renewable power, storage and nuclear energy.

Data centres are not incidental to this transition. They are becoming an increasingly significant and concentrated source of electricity demand. Consequently, decisions made during construction and technology procurement, covering cooling architecture, server efficiency, utilisation, renewable power sourcing and equipment lifecycle, will influence how efficiently this new demand can be accommodated.

None of this diminishes the importance of addressing water consumption responsibly, particularly in water-stressed regions where community confidence must be earned through measurement, transparency and responsible stewardship. However, it does suggest that the industry’s sustainability lens must become broader.

Greening data centres is not a single-issue challenge that can be solved solely at the cooling tower. It encompasses renewable power procurement, grid availability, storage, hardware efficiency, cooling technology, equipment utilisation, circularity and sourcing decisions made well before a facility is commissioned.

It also requires every participant in the value chain from operators and OEMs to distributors, consultants and systems integrators to treat efficiency as a fundamental design requirement rather than a compliance afterthought.

Let’s Build the Next Generation of Digital Infrastructure Differently

India has a genuine opportunity to build its next generation of digital infrastructure differently, learning from the resource and emissions challenges associated with earlier industrial expansion rather than repeating them.

Whether that opportunity is realised will depend less on any single regulation or corporate announcement and more on whether energy efficiency, water stewardship and renewable integration become default expectations in how data centres are specified, sourced, constructed and operated, from the very first blueprint.

- Karthik Narayanan Ramasubramanian, Director – Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro India