Agartala, India - January 29, 2026 - Tripura Chief Minister Prof. (Dr.) Manik Saha on Thursday laid the foundation stone for Bharti Airtel’s largest private data center in India’s Northeastern region, marking a significant step in the state’s push to position itself as a regional digital infrastructure hub.
The facility, to be developed by Nxtra by Airtel, represents an investment of approximately INR 200 crore (~USD 24 million) and will be built on a one-acre site at Chanmari in Agartala. Once completed, the three-story data center will offer 5 MW of IT capacity and span roughly 80,000 square feet, serving enterprise, government, and telecom workloads across the Northeast.
Speaking at the foundation ceremony, Chief Minister Saha said the project underlines the importance of data infrastructure in modern governance and economic growth. He noted that while India is among the world’s largest consumers of digital data, domestic data storage capacity remains limited, making regional investments critical to national digital resilience.
According to Airtel, the Agartala facility will be tightly integrated with the company’s national fiber backbone and subsea cable connectivity, enabling low-latency and high-availability services for customers across the North Eastern states. The data center is expected to support cloud adoption, digital public services, and private enterprise expansion in a region that has historically lagged behind major metro markets in infrastructure availability.
State officials highlighted Tripura’s competitive advantages for hosting digital infrastructure, including a relatively cool climate, surplus power availability, low seismic risk, and improved air and road connectivity. The state government has also rolled out policy incentives such as land lease support, power tariff concessions, and bandwidth subsidies to attract data center and IT investments.
Beyond infrastructure, the project is expected to have a broader economic impact. Local authorities estimate the data center will generate 150 to 200 direct and indirect jobs while catalyzing growth in allied sectors such as facility management, network services, and IT operations. The state is also developing complementary initiatives, including an Innovation and Incubation Lab and the proposed Tripura IT & Data Ecosystem Zone (TIDEZ), aimed at nurturing startups and digital talent.
Airtel said the Agartala data center aligns with Nxtra’s broader strategy of expanding carrier-neutral, sustainable data center capacity beyond traditional Tier-1 cities, as demand for localized data processing and storage accelerates across India’s fast-growing digital economy.
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