NLB Services report: Data center boom in India will create employment, one lakh engineers will be needed by 2030

New Delhi, 14 July. India’s rapidly growing data center industry could become one of the largest employment generating sectors in the country in the coming years. A new report said on Tuesday that by the year 2030, about one lakh skilled professionals will be required in this field.

India’s installed data center capacity is projected to reach 6.5 GW by the end of the decade from around 1.5 gigawatts (GW) currently, a Next Level Business (NLB) Services report said. At the same time, the country’s data center market can be worth more than $22 billion.

According to the report, investment commitments worth more than $126 billion have been made in this sector so far. This is the reason why the data center industry has become one of the fastest growing infrastructure sectors in India. However, experts have warned that if education institutions, industry and policy-makers do not come together to prepare a future-ready skilled workforce, the skill gap could become a major obstacle to the rapid growth of this sector.

Sachin Alug, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NLB Services, said that the expansion of data center and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure in India is not just an infrastructure project but a huge opportunity for nation building for the youth of the country. He said, ‘With the rapid pace at which India is moving towards digital transformation, the demand for a new generation of expert professionals in areas such as AI infrastructure, cloud operations, automation, power systems and critical facility management is increasing rapidly.’

He said it is not just a matter of filling jobs but creating a skilled workforce that will underpin India’s digital economy for decades to come. According to the report, due to the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence, the demand for experts in areas such as AI infrastructure engineering, cloud operations, platform engineering, DevOps, MLOps and data center automation is continuously increasing.

It is estimated that AI-based workloads will form about 30 percent of India’s total data center capacity in the coming years. As such, an understanding of AI infrastructure is becoming an important skill for engineers entering the data center industry.

The report said that demand for many new specialist roles is increasing rapidly in the digital infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure sector. Prominent among these are positions like AI Infrastructure Operations Engineer, Liquid Cooling Engineer, Energy Optimization Specialist, Critical Facilities Engineer and Power System Expert.

According to the report, the next generation AI-powered data centers will require advanced cooling systems, better energy management and state-of-the-art infrastructure, due to which the demand for these experts is likely to increase rapidly in the coming years.