On 13 October 2026 CtrlS Datacenters inaugurated a 12 MW IT load data centre in Patna and, on the same day, signed a non-binding letter of intent with the Government of Bihar for ₹10,000 crore and a 150 MW hyperscale AI factory at Bodh Gaya. Those are two very different facts on one press release. The Patna building exists and can be visited. The Bodh Gaya factory is an intention with a megawatt figure attached — which is more than most Indian AI factory announcements supply, and less than a project. The disclosure is unusually good: ₹10,000 crore for 150 MW is ₹66.7 crore per megawatt, which places Bodh Gaya in the expensive half of this registry’s cost ladder before a single pile is driven. The conflict is in Patna, where the company states the building cost ₹400 crore and a Bihar minister’s public post states ₹232 crore — a 72% difference on the same 12 MW.
1At a glance
2Two announcements on one day
| Patna DC2 | Bodh Gaya AI factory | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Operational, inaugurated | Planned, letter of intent |
| Capacity | 12 MW IT load | 150 MW |
| Cost stated | ₹400 crore or ₹232 crore | ₹10,000 crore |
| Cost per MW | ₹19.3 to ₹33.3 crore | ₹66.7 crore |
| Land | Pataliputra Industrial Area, acquired | Not disclosed |
| Power | Natural disaster-proof design, energy-efficient systems | Not disclosed |
| Customer | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Binding? | Built | No — non-binding LoI |
| Counted in this registry | 12 MW via PRJ-087 | 0 MW |
The 150 MW figure is worth taking seriously precisely because it comes with a number attached. Most Indian AI factory announcements name a site and a vision and stop. CtrlS has published a capacity, an investment and a letter with a state government, which is enough for a buyer to price the option — and not enough to count it.
Bihar has almost no data centre capacity. Before this announcement it counted 12.1 MW from two edge-scale facilities; a 150 MW AI factory would multiply the state’s capacity by more than twelve, in a state of 130 million people that has never had hyperscale infrastructure.
That is the opportunity, and it is also the reason to be careful. A 12× increase from an LoI is the kind of statement that gets repeated until somebody checks whether the ground has been broken.
3Four cost figures for one state
| Basis | Cost per MW | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Patna at ₹232 crore ÷ 12 MW | ₹19.3 crore | Minister’s public post; cheaper than any facility in the registry |
| Patna at ₹400 crore ÷ 12 MW | ₹33.3 crore | Company statement; in line with NTT Bengaluru 4 at ₹35.7 crore |
| India band, low | ₹51.4 crore | Bottom of the mainstream band |
| India band, high | ₹60.1 crore | Top of the mainstream band |
| Bodh Gaya at ₹10,000 crore ÷ 150 MW | ₹66.7 crore | An intention, at a premium to every mainstream facility in the file |
The Patna discrepancy is not trivial. ₹400 crore and ₹232 crore are both stated by people who were at the inauguration, and the difference is 72% on the same 12 MW. The likely explanation is scope: ₹400 crore may include the land, the shell and the power infrastructure, while ₹232 crore may be the building and fit-out. Neither speaker said which.
The registry publishes both, does not choose, and makes one observation a buyer can use: a 12 MW facility at ₹33 crore per MW is a good building in Indian terms; at ₹19 crore per MW it would be the cheapest megawatt in this file by a margin of 45%. Only one of those can be true.
Bodh Gaya is the opposite case. At ₹66.7 crore per MW it is priced above every mainstream facility in this registry and only just below the two small Kolkata outliers. A 150 MW AI factory in rural Bihar costing a third more per megawatt than a hyperscale campus on the outskirts of Mumbai is a statement about what AI-ready power, land assembly and new grid connection cost at a greenfield site — or it is a statement that the ₹10,000 crore covers more than the data centre.
A buyer who sees one cost figure cannot tell whether the asset is cheap or expensive. A buyer who sees the spread knows exactly which question to ask, and knows that the seller has already thought about it.
The cost-per-megawatt band in this registry is ₹51.4 to ₹60.1 crore for mainstream facilities. Patna’s plausible figure sits below it and Bodh Gaya’s above it. Both can be true at once, because they are different kinds of site.
4What Bihar counts today
| Record | Facility | MW | Tier | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRJ-086 | CtrlS Patna Edge DC 1 | 0.50 | Operating | Yes |
| PRJ-087 | CtrlS Patna Edge DC 2 | 11.60 | Operating | Yes |
| Bihar total counted | — | 12.10 | — | 2 records |
| PRJ-088 | CtrlS Bodh Gaya 150 MW AI factory | 150.00 | Unknown | No — LoI, no site or schedule |
| PRJ-238 | This record, ₹10,000 crore commitment | — | Not capacity | No |
One small correction carried in the file: the inauguration coverage states Patna DC2 at 12 MW of IT load, while this registry holds 11.6 MW from the earlier facility record. The difference is 0.4 MW and does not change any total. The record is retained at 11.6 pending a formal revision rather than edited on the strength of a press report.
Bihar is a one-operator state in this registry. Twelve megawatts, two buildings, both CtrlS, both in Patna. The state has 130 million people and the smallest evidenced data centre footprint of any large Indian state outside the north-east.
A single 12 MW building reopening the market is a bigger deal in Bihar than a 100 MW expansion in Mumbai. That is the arbitrage the whole eastern-India push is built on, and it is why this page matters more than its 12 MW suggests.
5The LoI, and what an LoI is worth
Three things follow from the instrument being a letter of intent rather than an agreement or an approval.
| It does | It does not |
|---|---|
| Commit a company publicly to a state and a number | Bind either party to build, fund or clear anything |
| Signal to the state that incentives should be prepared | Constitute a land allocation |
| Give the market a capacity figure to model | Survive a change of government, or of strategy |
| Precede a memorandum of understanding, usually | Guarantee an environmental clearance or a power connection |
CtrlS is a credible operator with 19 data centres across nine Indian markets and a stated ambition of 4.4 GW by 2030. The company has built in tier-two cities before, including Patna, and the ₹400 crore building next door is evidence that it finishes what it starts. The LoI is worth taking seriously and not worth counting.
The registry treats it as an unverified record with a published capacity, which is the highest treatment available to a project with a number and no site. It appears in no total.
6CtrlS against its own portfolio claims
| Source | Operating capacity | Note |
|---|---|---|
| This registry, reconciled 26 Oct 2026 | 33.1 MW | Across 6 named operating buildings |
| Credit rating agency, 2026 | About 150 MW | Expected to operate in fiscal 2026, rising to 950 to 1,000 MW by fiscal 2029 |
| Gap | About 117 MW | 3.5 times the counted figure |
| CtrlS pipeline as counted here | 193.2 MW | 13 records, largely stage-unverified |
| CtrlS building as counted here | 12.0 MW | PRJ-033 Bhopal |
| CtrlS 2030 ambition | 4.4 GW | Company statement; 6× the national operating total today |
This is the same defect as NTT, at a larger multiple. A rating agency believes CtrlS operates about 150 MW; this registry can name six buildings totalling 33.1 MW. The difference is almost certainly facilities that publish no capacity — CtrlS operates mid-sized and edge sites across nine markets, and a rating agency sees the company’s own internal numbers.
It is the single strongest argument for the review queue: 117 MW of CtrlS capacity is not missing from India, it is missing from the public record. Whether that is fixable by research or requires data purchase is the commercial question this registry does not yet answer — and it is the one an acquirer asks first.
NTT: claims about 400 MW live, this registry evidences 273.2 MW across 16 buildings.
CtrlS: a rating agency sees about 150 MW, this registry evidences 33.1 MW across 6 buildings.
Sify: reports 134 MW operational revenue-generating and 188 MW built, this registry evidences 155.09 MW across 11 records.
In every case the registry lands below the operator’s own figure and above nothing. That is the shape of an honest public-data registry, and it is why the operating total of 778.69 MW is a floor rather than a census.
7What would change this record
| Fact needed | Effect |
|---|---|
| Land allocation or an MoU replacing the LoI | Moves the record from intent to a project with a site |
| A construction start date | Moves 150 MW into the building tier, the single largest addition available to this registry |
| A power connection approval | Confirms the grid can carry 150 MW in a district with no data centre infrastructure |
| A phase split | Splits 150 MW into deliverable increments, which is how it will actually be financed |
If Bodh Gaya breaks ground, it becomes the largest single building-tier record in this registry — 150 MW against the current building total of 499.00 MW. Nothing else in the file would move a national number as much.
8Sources
Sources: The Hindu BusinessLine and Economic Times, 13 and 14 October 2026, on the ₹10,000 crore letter of intent with the Government of Bihar for a 150 MW hyperscale AI factory at Bodh Gaya, and the inauguration of the ₹400 crore 12 MW Patna data centre; Reuters, 13 October 2026, confirming the US$1.05 billion value and the 12 MW Patna capacity; Times of India Patna, 13 October 2026, on the Pataliputra Industrial Area inauguration in the presence of the Chief Minister; a Bihar minister’s public post of 13 October 2026 stating the Patna building cost as approximately ₹232 crore; Data Center Dynamics, October 2026, confirming the letter of intent is non-binding; a credit rating agency note cited in October 2026 coverage, projecting operational capacity of about 150 MW in fiscal 2026 rising to 950 to 1,000 MW by fiscal 2029; Gridvik records PRJ-086, PRJ-087 and PRJ-088. Record verified 26 October 2026.