The government of India has urged Microsoft to consider locating its future data centres closer to power generation facilities rather than near cable landing stations, arguing that this approach would reduce costs for both the company and the country.
Electronics and Information Technology secretary made the remarks at the launch of Microsoft’s fourth cloud region in India in Hyderabad, saying that setting up data centres near power generation sources would be more economical than locating them at coastal cable landing stations such as Chennai. He said the government would continue to facilitate faster approvals to meet both India’s and the global market’s requirements, and underlined the need for India to simultaneously access advanced global technologies while building domestic and sovereign computing capacity.
Microsoft formally launched its India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad, adding to its existing regions in Pune, Chennai and Mumbai. The Hyderabad region became generally available on August 06, 2026. The launch is part of Microsoft’s $20.5 billion investment commitment towards India’s digital and artificial intelligence infrastructure.