STT GDC Delhi 3 carries three published capacities. The card says 10 MW. A separate narrative on the same site describes a 6 MW facility scalable to 9.5 MW of IT. The portfolio total uses the largest. It is the only large data centre STT runs inside a city where no new capacity can be built, and it is 84% of the Delhi portfolio. No stage, rack count, floor area or PUE is published. Four megawatts of spread between the highest and lowest figure is a third of the entire building, and the whole portfolio is counted at zero.
1At a glance
2Ten, nine and a half, six
Three figures for one building, published by the same company, with no statement about which governs.
| If the 10 MW card is | Then the narrative is | Which is more likely |
|---|---|---|
| Current capacity | out of date | unlikely — cards are usually the maintained layer |
| The scalability ceiling | 6 MW current, 9.5 MW design | plausible: the card equals design, not current |
| A rounded-up current figure | 6 MW was the original build | possible, and it would make the card 67% high |
The second reading is the most consistent with how operators publish. A card often carries the design capacity, while prose describes what is currently installed and what the shell can reach. Under that reading Delhi 3 is a 6 MW operating building in a 10 MW shell with a 9.5 MW IT ceiling.
If that is right, STT’s actual Delhi capacity today is around 7.9 MW rather than 11.9 — a third lower than the portfolio total implies. Nobody outside the company can choose between those readings from public material.
3The only large building in Delhi
Delhi is an unusual market: enormous enterprise demand, almost no capacity, and no way to add more.
| Constraint | Effect |
|---|---|
| Land cost inside the territory | data centres cannot compete with commercial and residential land use |
| Pollution and construction restrictions | winter bans and long approval cycles |
| Water for cooling | a water-stressed city with restrictions on large cooling loads |
| Power tariffs | materially higher than Uttar Pradesh |
| What the state did instead | directed capacity to Noida, Greater Noida and the Yamuna Expressway |
So Delhi 3 is not a market-leading asset because the operator is strong in Delhi. It is a market-leading asset because there is nothing else there and no way to build a competitor. That is a genuine moat, and it is worth more than the megawatts suggest.
The corollary is that Delhi rents behave nothing like Noida rents. A Noida tenant has 326 MW of counted capacity to choose from. A Delhi tenant has one building with 84% of the territory’s published capacity.
4Why Delhi cannot be replaced
Three reasons a tenant pays for a Delhi address, and only one of them is latency.
| Reason | Who needs it | Substitutable? |
|---|---|---|
| Latency to the exchange and financial infrastructure | brokers, exchanges, market infrastructure | no |
| Data residency or government contract conditions | public sector, regulated entities | sometimes |
| Organisational preference for a capital address | banks, insurers, public sector | yes, at a cost |
| Everything else | general enterprise | yes — go to Noida |
Only the first is a hard requirement, and it is a small market. The rest is a premium paid for convenience and compliance, and it is the part that erodes when Noida capacity is 30 km away and a third cheaper.
For a buyer, that means the Delhi premium is real but narrower than operators imply, and it is worth testing which of those four reasons actually applies before accepting the price.
5Procurement
6Limits and open questions
- Three published capacities, no reconciliation. The central defect of this record.
- No stage, racks, floor area or PUE.
- Counted at zero with the rest of Delhi.
- Basis unresolved — none of the three figures is labelled IT or gross, though the 9.5 is described as IT.
- Delhi and Noida are separate states and must never be summed into one NCR figure silently.
- What would close it. One sentence stating which figure is current. That would move this record from tier C to tier B.
7Sources
Sources: STT GDC India Delhi city page, STT GDC India facility pages for Delhi, STT GDC India corporate site, and Indian market commentary on Delhi data centre constraints, power tariffs and the Noida alternative.