The ₹40-60 Cr per MW capex stack, power-dominated opex, how campuses are valued, and why verified land readiness prices better than cheap acreage.
Indian data-centre builds are conventionally costed per megawatt of IT load, with credible Indian builds indicatively in the ₹40-60 crore per MW band depending on tier, density and redundancy, AI-dense halls trend higher. The stack decomposes roughly into the power train, substations, transformers, switchgear, generators, UPS, as the largest single share; cooling plant next; civil structure and the shell; then fit-out, controls and security; with land typically under a tenth of the total in Tamil Nadu's corridors.
That last proportion misleads programmes into under-investing in the land workstream, which is where schedule risk actually concentrates: power timelines, rights-of-way and title defects stall builds that the civil contractor could otherwise deliver.
At scale, electricity dominates operating cost, commonly upward of seventy percent, which makes three levers decisive: the tariff and open-access structure negotiated, the renewable contracting that hedges it, and the engineering discipline, PUE, that converts grid power into billable IT load. Staffing, maintenance, water and insurance fill out the model but rarely move returns the way the power line does.
This is why Tamil Nadu's combination, industrial power treatment under the data-centre policy, deep renewable contracting options, and reliable grid, shows up directly in campus IRRs, not just in marketing copy.
Colocation and hyperscale leases price per kilowatt or megawatt of contracted IT load per month, with energy passed through or bundled; long-dated anchor contracts with cloud operators de-risk campuses and finance expansions. Asset values follow contracted megawatts and tenant covenant strength, and the sector's institutionalisation, platforms, REIT-style aggregation, global capital partnerships, has made verified, bankable documentation a pricing factor in itself.
An asset whose land, power and approval records are clean and evidenced trades at a different multiple from one whose history needs explaining; diligence quality literally appears in the cap rate.
The land line deserves more sophistication than its share of capex suggests: the right parcel is priced not on acreage comparables but on its verified readiness, power pathway, fibre diversity, clean title, computed envelope, flood posture, because each gap is a cost transferred into the programme at a multiple. A cheaper parcel that adds six months of substation works or a way-leave dispute is the most expensive land in the market.
Our data-centre advisory prices that readiness explicitly: verification findings translated into schedule and cost adjustments, so the land decision is made on programme economics, not per-acre optics.
Indicatively ₹40-60 crore per MW of IT load for institutional-grade builds, varying with tier, density and redundancy. The power train dominates; land is typically under a tenth of the stack.
Electricity, commonly over seventy percent at scale. Tariff structure, renewable contracting and PUE engineering are the levers that move returns.
On contracted IT megawatts, tenant covenant and growth headroom, with documentation quality, verified land, power and approvals, increasingly reflected in pricing as the sector institutionalises.