Over 500 delegates, including C-level executives, digital infrastructure professionals including architects, engineers and consultants (AECs), key buyers, decision makers, data center owners and operators came together at W.Media’s Chennai Cloud and Datecenter Convention. The day-long event was held at ITC Chola.
The opening address was delivered by Thiru. Praveen Nair (MD, ELCOT) who showcased how the Tamil Nadu government’s data center policy was helping create a positive ecosystem for the industry in the state.
This was followed by a power-packed panel discussion where CB Velayuthan (CEO, Digital Connexion) and Surajit Chatterjee (MD, CapitaLand Investment, Data Centre Group) shared their views on planning for the entire life cycle of a data center. The discussion was moderated by industry veteran Sandeep Dandekar.
In another panel discussion Roopesh Kumar (VP, Datacenter Services, Sify Technologies Ltd.) and Sundaragopal Venkatraman (CTO, IBM India) shared their ideas on how Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and quantum compute will be gamechangers in accelerating the growth of data centers. The discussion was moderated by Sreejith G. (VP & Head, Data Center Operations, STT GDC, India).
L to R: Jitesh Karlekar (Director, Data Centre Research – APAC, JLL – India), Syed Mohamed Beary (Founder & Chairman, Bearys Group), Sandeep Dandekar (Data Center Expert) and Vinod Javur (COO, Digital Edge DC)
Throughout the day, many more panel discussions followed where industry experts shared their experiences and wisdom with the audience in a hall that was packed since 8 AM! Some of the other speakers included Thiru. V. Vishnu IAS (MD & CEO, Guidance, Industries Department, Govt. of Tamil Nadu), Elankannan Jayaprakash (IT In-Charge, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Govt. of India), Syed Mohamed Beary (Founder & Chairman, Bearys Group), Vinod Javur (COO, Digital Edge DC), Ramachandra Nimbargi (Head – Datacentre Design, L&T), Chandra Mohan Singaram (AVP-Design, EverYondr), Pakshi Rajan M (Sr. Information Officer, World Bank Group), and many more.
All speakers were upbeat about Chennai’s data center market, mainly due to its access to submarine cable landing stations that connect Chennai to the information superhighway that stretches from East Asia to India to Africa to the Gulf region to Europe and the Americas. They also pointed out that the talent pool in Tamil Nadu was huge due to the abundance of technical universities in the state. They were also optimistic about the increasing availability of renewable energy from the states wind and hydel power projects.
