NTT to invest $500m a year in India for data centers

Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone revealed Friday that it will invest $500 million annually for the next several years in India, which the telecom group sees as its most important foreign market in Asia.

The planned investments in digital infrastructure include nine more data centers, which would roughly double NTT’s IT load capacity in the country to 300 megawatts. NTT also intends to build landing stations for undersea communications cables in Mumbai and Chennai in 2023.

These investments raise NTT’s bet on the growth of India’s digital economy. The United Nations forecasts India to overtake China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.

NTT invested more than $800 million in India over 2021 and 2022 combined.

NTT, a former state-owned telephone monopoly that owns leading Japanese mobile carrier Docomo, is expanding its international footprint as a shrinking domestic market and lower mobile rates weigh on growth at home.

It established a new unit that oversees international operations in October under subsidiary NTT Data. Nikkei.Asia