Sify Chennai 01 sits inside Tidel Park, was built in 2001, and is described by third-party trackers as India’s first purpose-built data centre. It publishes 3.58 MW of IT power on the current portfolio card, 3.6 MW on the Chennai page, and 4 MW with 500 racks on the colocation page — while another Sify page gives it 800+ racks. The megawatt figures agree within 12%. The rack counts differ by 60%, and on a density calculation the rack count matters more. At 3.58 MW this building is 1.2% of Tamil Nadu's 296.6 MW counted capacity, in the state that holds the largest new AI campus pipeline in the country.
1At a glance
2Three figures for one thirteen-floor building
| Figure | Source | MW | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colocation services page | Sify, undated | 4.0 | 500 racks, describes a Tidel Park facility with 4 MW IT power |
| Chennai and Europe pages | Sify, 2024 to 2026 | 3.6 | Tidel Park design IT power, rounded to one decimal |
| Portfolio card | Sep 2026 | 3.58 | Current card figure, precise to two decimals |
| This registry | — | 3.58 | Counted; the operator’s most precise current figure |
The pattern across the Sify family repeats here: the more precise the number, the lower it is. The rounded figures are 3.6 and 4.0; the two-decimal figure is 3.58. That is what a fleet-wide measurement usually looks like when a company starts reporting to two decimals — the marketing numbers round up, the audited ones do not.
The 12% spread is not the interesting part of this record. On a building of 3.58 MW, 0.42 MW is a rounding argument. The rent is set by the racks and the connectivity, not by the megawatts.
3Five hundred racks or eight hundred
Sify publishes two rack counts for this building on two of its own pages, and the difference changes the density by more than the capacity figures do.
| Capacity | Racks | kW per rack |
|---|---|---|
| 3.58 MW | 800 | 4.5 |
| 3.58 MW | 500 | 7.2 |
| 4.0 MW | 500 | 8.0 |
| 4.0 MW | 800 | 5.0 |
| 13 floors at 800 racks | — | About 62 racks per floor |
Every combination lands between 4.5 and 8 kW a rack. That is the enterprise colocation range of the early 2000s, and it is the honest way to describe this building: a facility designed for cabinets drawing three to five kilowatts, now being asked to host applications that expect ten.
Sixty-two racks a floor across thirteen floors is a dense, vertical, urban data centre — a telephone-exchange model rather than the warehouse-and-yard model that every new Indian campus uses. That gives it two things no greenfield campus has: an address inside the city and fibre paths that have been in place since before the metro fibre build-out.
When two published rack counts differ by 60%, neither is a typo. One is usually total cabinets and the other is contracted or sellable cabinets.
The inventory that matters to a buyer is the third number, which is never published: cabinets available for a new tenant today, at what density, at what rate.
Gridvik carries the published range and labels it. A single rack count would be a guess dressed as a fact.
4Chennai 01 in a 296.6 MW state
Tamil Nadu is the second-largest state in this registry at 296.6 MW counted, behind only Maharashtra, and Chennai is where almost all of it sits. The pipeline is not subtle: AirTrunk’s MAA1 at 128+ MW of facility power, the STT Chennai campus at 68 MW, CapitaLand’s Ambattur tower at 34 MW of IT power inside 53 MW gross, and Sify’s own Siruseri campus at 25.92 MW built against 130+ MW designed.
Against that, Chennai 01 is 3.58 MW — 1.2% of the state. And yet it is the site that holds the workloads that cannot move, because the new campuses are outside the city and this one is inside it. Siruseri is roughly 25 km south; Ambattur is in the north-west; MAA1 is further out again.
| Item | Chennai 01 — Tidel Park | Chennai 02 — Siruseri |
|---|---|---|
| Built | 2001 | Tower B 2025 |
| Form | 13 floors, vertical | Three-tower campus |
| Built IT power | 3.58 MW | 25.92 MW |
| Design ceiling | About 4 MW | 130+ MW |
| Density | 4.5 to 8 kW per rack | Up to 130 kW per rack |
| Location | Inside the city, Tidel Park | SIPCOT IT park, about 25 km south |
| Product | Legacy enterprise colocation | AI-ready hyperscale, liquid cooled |
That table is the whole Indian data centre story in six rows. The same operator runs a 4 kW rack inside the city and a 130 kW rack 25 kilometres outside it, and both are full. Capacity counts the megawatts; the market pays for the address.
5Procurement
6Limits and open questions
- Three published capacities — 3.58, 3.6 and 4 MW, a 12% spread. The registry counts 3.58 MW.
- Two published rack counts — 500 and 800+, a 60% spread. Neither is dated, and the density range is 4.5 to 8 kW a rack as a result.
- No floor area is published for the data centre floors, so the 13-floor form cannot be converted into a density figure per square foot.
- PUE is not published for this building. A 2001-era facility in a city tower will not be near the 1.4 to 1.6 range of new builds.
- Whether Tidel Park space is leased or owned is not stated. An expiring lease would change the valuation more than any capacity question.
- No tenant or occupancy disclosure exists for Chennai 01, so its revenue cannot be estimated from public data.
- What would close it. One current rack count, one available-cabinet figure, and the tenure of the Tidel Park floors.
7Sources
Sources: the Sify data centre portfolio page with the 3.58 MW card figure; the Sify Chennai data centre page; the Sify Europe Chennai data centre page with the 500-rack and 4 MW specification; the Sify colocation services page with the 800-plus rack count; and third-party specifications from Baxtel and DataCenterLocations.