Chennai 01 at Ambattur is CapitaLand’s first data centre development in Tamil Nadu: 34 MW of IT capacity behind 53 MW of gross power, split across 13 data halls — 2.6 MW per hall — on a four-acre parcel with about 600,000 square feet of built area and a dedicated 110 kV substation. It was unveiled on 15 October 2026, tenant-ready and completion targeted by end-2026, with a planned investment of ₹1,940 crore. That is ₹57.1 crore per megawatt of IT — a disclosed, itemised, single-building cost, which is rare enough in India to be worth a page on its own.
1At a glance
2Rs 57.1 crore per megawatt
| Basis | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Per megawatt of IT | ₹1,940 cr ÷ 34 MW | ₹57.1 crore |
| Per megawatt of gross power | ₹1,940 cr ÷ 53 MW | ₹36.6 crore |
| Per data hall | ₹1,940 cr ÷ 13 halls | ₹149 crore |
| Per square foot | ₹1,940 cr ÷ 600,000 sq ft | ₹32,333 per sq ft |
| Against NTT NAV2 phase one | ₹51.4 cr per MW | +11% |
| Against NTT Bengaluru 4 | ₹35.7 cr per MW | +60% |
| Against NTT Kolkata 1 | ₹80.0 cr per MW | −29% |
The two cheapest builds in this table are the two largest: Bengaluru 4 at 67.2 MW for ₹35.7 crore a megawatt and NAV2 phase one at 107 MW for ₹51.4 crore. The two most expensive are the two smallest: Kolkata 1 at 25 MW for ₹80 crore and STT Kolkata 2 at 6 MW for ₹75 crore.
Chennai 01 at 34 MW and ₹57.1 crore sits exactly where that logic puts it — mid-sized, mid-cost. There is no Chennai premium visible in the number.
This is the single most useful thing a per-megawatt cost figure does: it tells you whether a market is expensive or a building is small. Most of the time it is the building.
One caveat that changes the reading. ₹1,940 crore is a planned total development investment as stated by the CLINT chief executive, not a certified project cost and not necessarily restricted to this building. Treat the per-megawatt figure as a stated basis rather than an audited one.
3Thirteen halls on four acres
| Measure | Value | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Built area | 600,000 sq ft / 55,742 m² | Published |
| Site | 4 acres / 17,424 m² | BusinessLine, single source |
| Floor area ratio | 3.4 | Three to four storeys |
| IT per acre | 8.5 MW | High for a four-acre parcel |
| Gross power per acre | 13.25 MW | Above AirTrunk Chandivali at 12.9 on a facility basis |
| Square feet per MW of IT | 17,647 | Against NTT’s 13,300 standard |
| IT per data hall | 2.6 MW | Against NTT Bengaluru 4 at 3.2 MW per hall |
| Halls | 13 | The most halls per building in this registry |
The floor area ratio of 3.4 says three or four storeys over a nearly full four-acre footprint. That is the same vertical logic as every other urban Indian build in this file, at a smaller scale: there is no way to put 34 MW of IT on four acres at ground level.
13 data halls averaging 2.6 MW is the more interesting number. It is the most halls in any single building this registry has recorded, and it is a deliberate design choice: smaller modules let a single-tenant, high-density AI deployment be isolated without stranding the rest of the building. NTT’s Bengaluru 4 runs 7 halls at 3.2 MW; CapitaLand runs 13 at 2.6 MW. Same total concept, twice the granularity.
A building with 13 halls can lease to 13 tenants of 2.6 MW, or to one tenant across all of them. A building with three halls of 11 MW can only do the second.
That flexibility is worth a premium in a market where the largest buyers are hyperscalers who want whole buildings and the fast-growing buyers are AI tenants who want two halls. Chennai 01 is built to serve both, which is why it costs ₹57 crore a megawatt rather than ₹35 crore.
4The Ambattur corridor
| Record | MW | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AirTrunk MAA1, Ambattur (PRJ-183) | 128 | Facility, at least | Stage not stated |
| CtrlS Chennai park | 72 | Published | Operating and expanding |
| Iron Mountain Chennai | 42 | Announced | Two buildings, 23.2 and 19 MW |
| NTT Chennai 2 (PRJ-167) | 34.8 | IT, additive | 17.4 MW per building, live |
| CapitaLand Chennai 01 | 34 | IT, additive | Tenant-ready end-2026 |
| Ambattur corridor published | 310.8 | Mixed scopes | — |
| Tamil Nadu counted in this registry | 296.6 | IT, additive rows | The corridor exceeds the state |
310.8 MW published in one industrial suburb against 296.6 MW counted across all of Tamil Nadu. The corridor is the state, and the numbers are not on the same basis: the corridor figure includes facility capacity and unverified stages, the state figure is IT load from additive rows.
Chennai 01 is one of the few records in the corridor stating both scopes. Its 34 MW of IT is 11.5% of the state’s counted capacity — from a building that does not yet have a tenant.
The 110 kV substation is also worth marking. Every hyperscale site in this registry connects at 220 kV or above — AirTrunk MAA1 next door runs 230 kV, Hyderabad runs 440/220 kV. A 110 kV connection for 53 MW of gross power is a mid-size urban connection, and it is the physical reason this building is 34 MW and not 100.
5Procurement
6Limits and open questions
- Nothing is commissioned. Unveiled October 2026; tenant-ready targeted end-2026.
- ₹1,940 crore is a planned development investment stated by the CLINT chief executive, not an audited project cost, and may not cover this building alone.
- The four-acre parcel is single-source from BusinessLine and is not in the operator release.
- 600,000 sq ft is a built-up figure, not technical hall area, so 17,647 sq ft per MW overstates the floor per megawatt inside the halls.
- 34 MW is IT capacity and is what the registry counts; 53 MW gross is never added to a total.
- Liquid-cooling readiness is an operator statement with no published density ceiling per hall.
- What would close it. A tenant announcement and a hall-level density specification.
7Sources
Sources: the CapitaLand Investment release of 15 October 2026; The Hindu BusinessLine coverage of 15 October 2026; the CapitaLand India Data Centre Fund release of 31 December 2025; CapitaLand data centre listing pages; and CLINT results disclosures.