Adobe StockBeyond the Metros: India's West-to-East data centre corridor
As coastal hubs saturate, a digital backbone connects Mumbai to Andhra via heartland cities such as Indore, Nagpur, and Raipur
January 19, 2026Real Estate
Written by:Jorge Aguinaga
Key Takeaways
- Developers are moving beyond saturated coastal hubs to establish a new West-to-East digital corridor connecting Mumbai to Andhra Pradesh.
- Inland cities such as Indore, Raipur, and Nagpur are emerging as key targets due to land availability and the need to serve interior markets.
- Operational risks remain high in these new frontiers because maintaining strict SLAs and repairing fibre cuts is far more difficult than in established metros.
Data Centre Saturation
For the past decade, India's data centre story has been overwhelmingly concentrated in a few key coastal hubs, with Mumbai and Chennai dominating the landscape due to their submarine cable landing stations (CLS) and established enterprise ecosystems.However, as land prices in these metros skyrocket and power availability becomes increasingly constrained, forward-thinking operators are looking beyond the traditional strongholds to pioneer a new West-to-East corridor that cuts through the centre of the country.
This strategic shift is not merely about finding cheaper land but is driven by the necessity to build a resilient, low-latency network that can serve the next billion digital users residing in India’s interior.
The Rise of the West-to-East Corridor
Recent high-level industry analysis reveals a significant move towards establishing a digital corridor connecting Mumbai in the west to Andhra Pradesh in the east. This emerging artery is designed to reduce the country’s reliance on a single path and open up vast tracts of the interior for digital industrialisation.By developing this corridor, operators are effectively creating a redundancy route that safeguards national connectivity while bringing robust digital infrastructure to states that have historically been bypassed by the first wave of tech investment.
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The New Inland Frontiers
This expansion strategy has brought cities like Indore, Raipur, and Nagpur into sharp focus as the next potential growth engines for the sector. These inland locations offer distinct advantages including abundant land parcels, lower operational costs, and often more favourable government incentives compared to the saturated coastal metros.The logic follows that as data consumption becomes ubiquitous across tier 2 and tier 3 cities, the infrastructure must move closer to the user to ensure low latency and improved user experience.
The Operational Reality Check
While the strategic case for inland expansion is compelling, the operational reality presents a complex set of challenges that developers must navigate carefully. Senior industry leaders warn of the difficulty of maintaining strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in remote locations.In major metros, a fibre cut or equipment failure can be addressed within hours due to the density of skilled engineers and spare parts, whereas in a remote location like Raipur, a similar incident could lead to prolonged outages if the logistics and support ecosystem are not meticulously planned.
Furthermore, the risk of frequent fibre cuts due to roadworks - a common issue in developing Indian cities - poses a significant threat to the uptime reliability that global hyperscalers demand.
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