Blackstone-backed Lumina Acquires 3.8 Acre Mumbai Land for Rs 475 Crore to Expand Data Centre Footprint

Lumina CloudInfra, the data centre platform owned by private equity giant Blackstone, has acquired two land parcels at Chandivali in Mumbai, spanning 3.8 acres, for a total of Rs 475 crore. According to registration documents accessed by real estate data analytics firm CRE Matrix, the deals were registered on September 19. Lumina paid a stamp duty of around Rs 28.50 crore for the two transactions, which were made with two separate landlords.

This acquisition marks Lumina's second site in the Mumbai market. The company is currently building a data centre on a Navi Mumbai land parcel with a capacity of 180 megawatts (MW). Of this, 30 MW in capacity is already operational. The Chandivali site is expected to have a capacity of 60 MW.

Lumina's expansion plans are ambitious. The company aims to have around 600 MW in data centre capacity. Besides Mumbai, Lumina is planning to set up two data centres in southern India, with a total capacity of 240 MW. The firm also has another 120 MW in the pipeline for southern India. In total, Lumina may have an India capacity of around 600 MW.

The deals underscore the moves by major data centre players, including hyperscalers and data co-location operators, to ramp up data centre capacity, particularly in the Mumbai metropolitan region, which is the largest data centre market in India. Lumina plans to invest around Rs 50,000 crore to set up its data centre portfolio in India. Blackstone, the world's largest owner and provider of data centres, has a global data centre portfolio worth more than $100 billion.

Other significant players in the data centre market include Hiranandani-owned Yotta, CapitaLand, Adani Connex, K Raheja Corp-backed Mindspace REIT, Larsen & Toubro-owned Cloudfiniti, RMZ, and Airtel's Nxtra. These companies have announced major moves to increase data centre capacity in key markets like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata. Hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft have also been expanding their data centre capabilities across most key markets in India.

The growing demand for data centres is driven by the rapid expansion of digital services, cloud computing, and the increasing need for data storage and processing capabilities. Mumbai, with its strategic location and robust infrastructure, remains a prime location for data centre investments.