Maharashtra has attracted investment interest worth upwards of $300 billion in the data centre segment and already houses 66 per cent of the country’s installed data centre capacity, according to Kaustubh Dhavse, chief advisor for investments and strategy to the state’s chief minister.
Addressing the Naredco Real Estate and Infrastructure Investors’ Summit 2026 in Mumbai on Thursday (3 September), Dhavse described the sector as one of the principal drivers for the state’s coming growth cycle. He projected that Maharashtra would reach 5.7 gigawatts of data centre capacity by 2032.
Power and water are the two basic requirements for such facilities, Dhavse said, adding that the state was tackling these demands directly.
He also pointed to “Mumbai 3.0”, a planned development covering 336 square kilometres, as another engine of expansion.
Other projects in the pipeline include a healthcare city built around Cleveland Clinic on 165 acres, and a 210-acre education hub meant to accommodate 12 overseas universities. Agreements have been concluded with seven of them so far, he said.
Naredco India chairman Niranjan Hiranandani said the body had petitioned the Reserve Bank of India to classify townships larger than 25 to 50 acres as infrastructure.
Hiranandani pegged growth in real estate at 15 per cent for the current year, but raised a red flag on affordable housing, which he said had contracted by 20 per cent in two years.
He urged both the state and the industry to build a rental housing pipeline. The sector is also short of two million trained construction workers, with demand for another five million expected over five years.
Dhavse said the state’s $660 billion economy is targeting $1 trillion by 2030, requiring annual growth of nearly 13.8 per cent against the 10.2 per cent recorded over the past seven years, excluding the pandemic period.
