When global data center giants collectively flock to India, the real competition is no longer in the city of Mumbai, but in the rising satellite cities around it. AirTrunk, an Asia Pacific data center developer controlled by Blackstone Group, has just signed a letter of intent for land allocation with the Maharashtra government to build a mega scale data center park with a planned capacity of 3GW and a total investment of approximately 21 billion US dollars in the Legad Payne Growth Center. Chief Minister Fadnavis personally announced after meeting with Robin Khuda, founder of AirTrunk, that this investment will completely light up Maharashtra's digital future.

Blackstone dual line layout

AirTrunk's journey to India did not start from scratch. After being acquired by Blackstone at the end of 2024, in April 2026, it officially gained entry into the Indian market through the acquisition of Lumina CloudInfra, a subsidiary of Blackstone. Lumina has a continuously growing portfolio of data center assets, allowing AirTrunk to directly undertake a mature Indian business chassis without the need for a cold start. Starting from Australia in 2015, through Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and now India, AirTrunk's expansion logic is clear: following the direction of capital, landing means scale.

Legard becomes a new battlefield

According to the latest report of Cushman&Wakefield, Mumbai still accounts for nearly 50% of the total operating capacity of Indian data centers. In 2025, the operating capacity will increase from 542MW to 768MW, an increase of 42% year on year. But the bottlenecks of land and electricity have forced growth to spill over, with Seine, New Mumbai Belpur, and Taloga becoming new hotspots, and Legard Panwell, just a stream away from Mumbai, also becoming a popular investment destination. Keywords: Southeast Asian news, big data center

AirTrunk's choice of Leggard instead of the core area of Mumbai is precisely the precise bottleneck of this overflow logic. As Mumbai's data center density approaches its ceiling, the next decade's incremental story is likely to be written in these satellite cities that are being redefined.Editor/Cheng Liting