Microsoft is in talks with ITI to tap public sector cloud business

BENGALURU: Microsoft is in talks with public sector firm ITI Ltd to use its large data centre for its Azure cloud services and tap the growing opportunity in government contracts in the country.

ITI, the Bengaluru-based public sector undertaking, is building a 1,000-rack data centre in the city, as it looks to leverage the land in its Bengaluru campus, ITI chairman K Alagesan told ET.

India has emerged as the next battleground for cloud companies as they look to tap into the growing opportunity in banks and internet companies to host locally, the data it generates from local users. Global players like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google and Alibaba have their data centres in the country and already offer cloud services to customers. India has nearly 150 data centres spread across the country with banks and government organisations storing their digital data in these centres.