STT GDC Chennai 2 is 26 MW, operational, and it is 90% of everything the company actually runs in Chennai. Its sibling Chennai 1 is 3 MW. Everything else in the 68 MW city headline is either under construction or filed under a different campus. This is the one building that constitutes STT’s Chennai business, and it is 38% of the number that gets quoted. Against the counted Chennai market it is a fifth of AirTrunk’s 128 MW, and it counts for nothing in the Tamil Nadu total.
1At a glance
2Ninety per cent of the real business
The gap between a portfolio headline and the building that carries it is at its widest here.
| Measure | MW | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| Headline | 68 | the number in market notes |
| Operating | 29 | 43% of it |
| This building | 26 | 90% of that 29 |
| Chennai 1, the other operating site | 3 | a small legacy floor |
| Under construction | 32 | pipeline with no published date |
| Another campus | 7.2 | counted inside a headline it does not belong to |
So STT is, in practice, a single 26 MW building with a 3 MW annex in Chennai. That is the honest description of its position, and it is materially different from the 68 MW that circulates.
None of this is a criticism of the company. Every operator describes its portfolio at the level that flatters it. It is a criticism of using those descriptions as market data.
3Twenty-six megawatts in Chennai
Chennai is the most contested southern market, and 26 MW is a mid-sized position in it rather than a leading one.
| Operator | Published | Operating today | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| AirTrunk MAA1 | 128 MW | stage unverified | 128 MW |
| CtrlS Chennai park | 72 MW | DC 1 at 45 MW implied | 0 MW |
| PDG CH1 | 72 MW | planned or developing | 72 MW |
| CapitaLand Chennai 01 | 53 MW | under construction | 53 MW |
| Nxtra Chennai | 46 MW | live | 46 MW |
| STT Chennai | 68 MW | 29 MW | 0 MW |
| State counted total | — | — | 296.6 MW |
STT’s 29 MW operating is comparable to Nxtra’s and well behind AirTrunk’s claimed scale. But note the third column: two of the operators at the top of this table count their full published figures in the state total, one of them while the building is still under construction. STT, with the cleanest stage disclosure in the market, counts nothing.
That is the perverse outcome of a verification rule applied evenly: the operator that tells you what is built gets excluded, and the operator that tells you what is planned gets counted.
4What 26 MW holds
Twenty-six megawatts is a genuine hyperscale-capable hall at current densities, if it was designed for them.
| Assumed density | Racks | Floor area at 100 W a sq ft | What it can host |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 kW a rack | 5,200 | about 260,000 sq ft | large enterprise colocation |
| 8 kW a rack | 3,250 | about 260,000 sq ft | current hyperscale tenant |
| 12 kW a rack | 2,167 | about 260,000 sq ft | AI-capable, with liquid cooling |
The design density decides whether this building is an asset or a liability in the AI cycle. A 5 kW hall in Chennai in 2029 is a building that cannot take the demand that exists; a 12 kW hall is one of the few in the country that can.
And it is unknowable from the public record. That is the single most expensive missing fact in the Tamil Nadu file.
5Procurement
6Limits and open questions
- No racks, floor area or PUE. Density brackets span 2,167 to 5,200 cabinets.
- No commissioning date, though the stage is stated.
- Counted at zero while less well-documented competitors are counted in full.
- No tenant information for a 26 MW hall that is almost certainly anchored.
- Design density unpublished, which is the most commercially significant unknown in Tamil Nadu.
- What would close it. A design density. One figure changes what this building is worth.
7Sources
Sources: STT GDC India Chennai city page, STT GDC India facility pages for Chennai, STT GDC India corporate site, AirTrunk CapitaLand PDG and Nxtra Chennai material for the market comparison, and Indian market commentary on Chennai data centre supply.