Latest news with #NarendraSen
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Indian AI Cloud Infra Company NeevCloud Appoints Vijayakumar as Head of Engineering & Product Development (AI)
NeevCloud , an Indian AI infrastructure company, has appointed Vijayakumar as Head of Engineering & Product Development (AI). Vijayakumar will lead NeevCloud's Engineering and Product teams to build a full-stack AI ecosystem to support the company's mission to democratize AI by delivering a true end-to-end AI platform that's accessible, affordable, and infinitely scalable. Under Vijayakumar's leadership, NeevCloud aims to ensure innovation excellence while meeting business objectives. With over 18 years of experience in designing and delivering enterprise-grade solutions, Vijayakumar brings expertise in cloud technologies including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, virtualization, edge computing, cloud native platforms and AI. Speaking about the appointment, Narendra Sen, Founder and CEO, NeevCloud said, 'At NeevCloud, we are building the backbone of India's AI-first future — a full-stack AI SuperCloud designed to power innovation at scale. Vijayakumar brings the right blend of deep technical expertise and customer-centric product thinking. His proven track record in cloud-native platforms and AI systems will help us accelerate our roadmap and engineer infrastructure that's not just high-performance, but also inclusive and accessible.' Prior to joining NeevCloud, he has worked with VMware., OVHCloud and Sify Technologies. He has led global engineering teams, emphasizing on platform thinking, developer-centric design, and secure software development practices. Vijayakumar has a B.E. in Computer Science, professional certifications in virtualization and cloud technologies and an MBA in Systems from Madras University. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Economic Times
08-07-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
AI infra firm RackBank gets land in Indore, Raipur for data centres
AI infrastructure startup RackBank is looking to expand data centres in tier-2 cities like Indore and Raipur to reduce its operational cost by 2–3x as compared to data centre hotspots like Mumbai, Chennai and Noida. The firm, which recently launched an AI cloud business unit called NeevCloud, has acquired six acres of land in Indore for an 18 megawatt facility and 13 acres in Raipur for a 100 megawatt facility, Narendra Sen, founder and CEO of RackBank and NeevCloud, told ET. These investments are supported by state governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh respectively in form of power subsidies and other benefits. To maintain competitive pricing for on-demand GPUs (graphics processing units), neocloud firms need to cut fixed costs and operational costs, especially because GPUs guzzle immense power and water. For instance, land costs in Raipur are Rs 30 lakh per acre, less than a tenth of Mumbai's rates, and operational costs are equally compelling, Sen explained.'In tier-1 cities, it costs Rs 50 crore per megawatt to build. We do it for Rs 25 crore in tier-2. State governments like Madhya Pradesh are also supporting data centre companies with single window clearances and dedicated power supply. Our delivery timeline is nine months, as compared to metro cities where it can be 24 months,' he added that RackBank's in-house immersion cooling system Varuna allows it to cut capital costs by up to company is aiming to raise Rs 700 crore debt to fund this expansion. This comes after it raised a $16.5 million (nearly Rs 138 crore) equity seed round in March 2025 from D-Street investors like Ashish Kacholia and Madhulika Agarwal.'We want to become the CoreWeave of Asia Pacific,' he said, referencing the US-based AI cloud startup that recently went public after a meteoric in 2023, NeevCloud currently operates a cluster of over 700 GPUs, including Nvidia H100, H200, MI300 and plans to add the latest Blackwell GPUs in Raipur soon. NeevCloud's model focuses on enterprise AI workloads, medical diagnostics and government partnerships. 'Hyperscalers like AWS and Azure dominate the general cloud, but they don't have enough GPU capacity in India. Startups are hungry for training and inference compute, and they're willing to switch providers,' said Sen. 'We're already seeing strong traction from AI startups and healthcare firms.' On the global front, NeevCloud is also setting up presence in Europe (Finland, Norway) and the US, partnering with local data centre operators to ensure compliance and reach.'Customers expect availability. If your site shows zero GPUs, they bounce,' said Sen. 'So we're launching regions in key markets to stay competitive.'
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
India's first AI-centric SEZ to come up in CG at a cost of 1000 crore
Raipur: In a landmark development, India's first Artificial Intelligence (AI)-centric Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will be established in Nava Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Designed exclusively for the advancement and operations of AI and computer data technologies, the govt expects it to catapult the region into the national and global spotlight as a leading digital and technological hub. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The project will be spearheaded by a private limited data company with an estimated investment of Rs 1000 crore. Spanning approximately over six acres, the SEZ will feature a state-of-the-art data center of 1.5 lakh square feet, which will be equipped with high-performance computing systems and servers capable of powering advanced AI requirements, officials said. Four high-density data centers are planned to support digital infrastructures across multiple states. CM Vishnu Deo Sai lauded the project as a 'new beginning for the state', highlighting its potential to generate employment for the youth and to establish the state as a technological force on the national stage. He emphasized that the AI SEZ aligns seamlessly with the visions of Digital India and Make in India. "This initiative is a strategic leap that positions India not just as a consumer of AI services, but as a self-reliant producer and host," said Narendra Sen, CEO of RackBank Data Centers Pvt Ltd, at the event, announcing the project. He added that the data center will create jobs for IT engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity professionals, and network managers. The company plans to collaborate with ITIs, engineering, and polytechnic colleges of the state to launch specialized training programs, preparing students for future roles in the AI industry. The ambitious plan of this SEZ envisions that global giants like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta may host their AI services from this center. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now For the first time, India will not merely consume these services but also offer a domestic base for their operations, marking a new jump of the state in future technologies. The state govt thinks that beyond its technical significance, the project promises wide-ranging socio-economic impact. Students from remote and tribal regions will have national and international level opportunities right in the state, officials added. Raipur: In a landmark development, India's first Artificial Intelligence (AI)-centric Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will be established in Nava Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Designed exclusively for the advancement and operations of AI and computer data technologies, the govt expects it to catapult the region into the national and global spotlight as a leading digital and technological hub. The project will be spearheaded by a private limited data company with an estimated investment of Rs 1000 crore. Spanning approximately over six acres, the SEZ will feature a state-of-the-art data center of 1.5 lakh square feet, which will be equipped with high-performance computing systems and servers capable of powering advanced AI requirements, officials said. Four high-density data centers are planned to support digital infrastructures across multiple states. CM Vishnu Deo Sai lauded the project as a 'new beginning for the state', highlighting its potential to generate employment for the youth and to establish the state as a technological force on the national stage. He emphasized that the AI SEZ aligns seamlessly with the visions of Digital India and Make in India. "This initiative is a strategic leap that positions India not just as a consumer of AI services, but as a self-reliant producer and host," said Narendra Sen, CEO of RackBank Data Centers Pvt Ltd, at the event, announcing the project. He added that the data center will create jobs for IT engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity professionals, and network managers. The company plans to collaborate with ITIs, engineering, and polytechnic colleges of the state to launch specialized training programs, preparing students for future roles in the AI industry. The ambitious plan of this SEZ envisions that global giants like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta may host their AI services from this center. For the first time, India will not merely consume these services but also offer a domestic base for their operations, marking a new jump of the state in future technologies. The state govt thinks that beyond its technical significance, the project promises wide-ranging socio-economic impact. Students from remote and tribal regions will have national and international level opportunities right in the state, officials added.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
India's first AI-focused SEZ to come up in Chhattisgarh
India's first AI SEZ in Chhattisgarh RackBank to invest Rs 1000 crores Raipur: In a landmark development, India's first Artificial Intelligence (AI)-centric Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will be established in Nava Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Designed exclusively for the advancement and operations of AI and computer data technologies, the government expects it to catapult the region into the national and global spotlight as a leading digital and technological hub. The project will be spearheaded by a private limited data company with an estimated investment of Rs 1000 crore. Spanning approximately over six acres, the SEZ will feature a state-of-the-art 1.5 lakh square feet data center, equipped with high-performance computing systems and servers capable of powering advanced AI requirements. Four high-density data centers are planned to support digital infrastructures across multiple states. Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai lauded the project as a 'new beginning for the state', highlighting its potential to generate employment for the youth and establish the state as a technological force on the national stage. He emphasized that the AI SEZ aligns seamlessly with the visions of Digital India and Make in India. 'This initiative is a strategic leap that positions India not just as a consumer of AI services, but as a self-reliant producer and host,' said Narendra Sen, CEO of RackBank Data Centers Pvt Ltd, at the event announcing it. He added that the data center will create jobs for IT engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity professionals, and network managers. The company plans to collaborate with ITIs, engineering, and polytechnic colleges of the state to launch specialized training programs, preparing students for future roles in the AI industry. The ambitious plan of this SEZ thinks that Global giants like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta may host their AI services from this center. For the first time, India will not merely consume these services but also offer a domestic base for their operations, marking a new jump of the state in future technologies. The state government thinks that beyond its technical significance, the project promises wide-ranging socio-economic impact. Students from remote and tribal regions will have national and international level opportunities right in the state. The plan projects that in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, across language, education, health, and agriculture, this SEZ represents a bold step toward positioning Chhattisgarh inside India and outside, at the forefront of the digital revolution.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
India's data centre push inland is a template for Global South
Photo/Agencies Narendra Sen has a humble origin story. His family comes from a village near Indore. They moved to the city in 1997 and everyone had to work, so Sen started a cyber-cafe. He slowly expanded into hosting servers. Today, the founder of Indore-based data centre company RackBank presides over a 10-megawatt facility on the outskirts of Madhya Pradesh's capital, with two more data centres under construction – one of them in Raipur. He's also secured land for a fourth site. Sen did not chase Mumbai's eastern seaboard or Chennai's coastlines – both popular because they are landing sites for submarine cables that are the backbone of our global internet. Instead he chased land prices. 'In Indore we paid roughly 30 lakh an acre,' Sen notes. 'A similar plot in Mumbai is nudging 30 crore. If you buy expensive, you have to sell expensive. India's startups cannot afford that.' Cheap land is only the first link in Sen's affordability crusade. Because power is the single largest operating cost for a data centre provider, RackBank negotiated a state subsidy that cuts its tariff to around 6 per kilowatt-hour – less than half the prevailing rate in Mumbai. 'We reckon we can run 40% cheaper than a tier-one data centre yet meet the same Uptime Tier IV standards (the highest level of data centre reliability),' he insists. 'That is what will democratise compute for colleges, fintechs and AI developers who simply cannot pay Western hyperscale prices.' The economics matter because India is racing into an era in which every AI chatbot, logistics algorithm and streaming platform is underpinned by specialised silicon – and that silicon is ravenous. While a conventional rack might draw 10 kW, Sen's next Indore data centre is being designed for 80-200 kW per rack, cooled by direct-tochip liquid loops and full-immersion baths built in-house. 'General-purpose centres are yesterday's technology,' he says. 'Accelerated computing needs different architecture, and it can be done just as safely in central India as on the coast. AI can live anywhere if the power and cooling are right.' A NATIONAL RETHINK Sen's philosophy – put capacity where land and electrons are plentiful rather than where submarine cables land – is rapidly becoming industry orthodoxy. Vipul Kumar , vice-president for edge and network at CtrlS Datacentres, says the momentum is unmistakable. 'We have already established edge data-centre facilities in Patna and Lucknow and are expanding into Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Bhopal, Jaipur and Nagpur,' he says. For Kumar, the logic is strategic as well as economic. Decentralising data-centres, he says, is vital for India's digital future. 'Our facilities in these emerging cities are purpose-built to deliver low latency, comply with data-localisation requirements and offer cost-effective solutions,' he says. Ashish Arora, chief executive of Airtel-owned Nxtra, says that with the growing demand from OTT platforms and content delivery network providers for low-latency and high-performance content delivery, edge data-centre networks have become crucial. The company today has over 120 edge facilities across over 65 cities, complemented by 14 hyperscale data centres, to ensure seamless streaming experiences even in smaller towns. Fintech platform Infibeam Avenues is staking its future on a constellation of small facilities. Chairman Vishal Mehta says they are planning a network of 1to 2-megawatt data centres in at least ten cities, each costing 20-50 crore. The decentralised model, he says, spreads risk, supports low-latency AI workloads and can break even within 24 months. Mehta adds that the shift inland is already reshaping corporate real estate. 'Global capability centres (GCCs), once concentrated in major metros, are increasingly looking at tier-2 and tier-3 cities. The availability of advanced digital infrastructure, combined with cost savings and talent pools, is turning places such as Gandhinagar, Kochi and Jaipur into innovation hubs,' he says. ECONOMICS OF THE HEARTLAND As we said earlier, the economics of the heartland is compelling. Land in Vidarbha or Bundelkhand costs a fraction of Mumbai's asking price; power is cheaper and, crucially, more abundant. Latency is another driver. A widely used rule of thumb equates one millisecond of round-trip delay to roughly 100 miles of fibre. A server farm in Indore sits almost equidistant from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad – meaning half the population can be reached in under 10 ms. 'For a streaming service or a payment gateway that is good enough,' Sen says. The final catalyst is AI. Training a large language model can devour more electricity than a thousand Indian homes use in a year and demands carefully choreographed GPUs. 'AI is already a different war,' Sen says. 'America leads, China follows, and India must create its own sovereign compute layer if we want to stay in the game.' RackBank plans to deploy Nvidia's forthcoming Blackwell chips within six months and market a sovereign 'supercloud' to Indian developers. CtrlS is integrating renewableenergy hybrids; Nxtra is piloting fuel-cells; Infibeam's pods are designed for phased GPU upgrades as demand grows. Collectively these experiments could become templates for fastgrowing regions from Africa to Latin America. 'If compute stays expensive, only big corporates innovate,' Sen argues. 'Put affordable GPUs in tier-two cities and a college kid can fine-tune a healthcare model on local data. That is how you discover the UPI or Aadhaar of the AI era.' And this, he argues, applies to many countries around the world. DEALING WITH POWER RELIABILITY None of the pioneers underestimate the obstacles. Reliable grid power, fibre backhaul and skilled technicians are perennial headaches. 'Power infrastructure reliability remains a primary concern in many locations,' Kumar admits, noting the need for hefty investments in redundancy. Mehta flags the same issue: 'Many tier-2 regions still lack the grid stability and renewable integration needed to support large-scale data-centre operations.' Yet, technical ingenuity is helping to close the credibility gap. RackBank's pre-engineered, single-storey sheds can be assembled in six months – onethird the time a vertical citycentre tower might take – and its patented immersion tanks can slash cooling power by 60%. CtrlS and Nxtra are pursuing similar modular playbooks; Infibeam distributes its IT load across multiple micro-grids to avoid single points of failure. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
