Aim to be data hub of the world: Piyush Goyal

Commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday India should aspire to become the world's largest destination for data centres because of the advantages of an interconnected grid, reliable green or clean power, data security and trained workforce.

The minister, speaking on the sidelines of the Bharat Climate Forum, said India's attractiveness as a data centre destination is also because of its own data, which will help generate artificial intelligence (AI) models.

"I see huge demand for data centres because of our interconnected grid, our sustainability thrust, trust on India's systems and processes and the business policies," he said.


On India's strides in the energy transition sector, Goyal said the country has come a long way in the last decade in renewable energy. He, however, mentioned that while incentives help to kickstart any segment, it should not be a long-term goal of any industry.

"At best the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme can help us kickstart the process and give the initial boost, but ultimately we have to accept that the industry has to stand on its own feet," Goyal said.

Businesses have to be economically viable propositions and anything working on mandates may not succeed in the long run, he said.

Goyal talked about the LED bulb distribution programme launched by India in 2015 which was successful because of economies of scale, among other boosting measures.