印度电力：数据中心——印度数据中心故事中的重资产角色

Electric India: Data-Centers - The asset heavy play in the DC storyshaping up in India... When I was marketing in Singapore-Hong Kong in Feb, foreign investors were clear thatone has to position for data-centers even within India and the wave is yet to hit (they havebeen right till now!). One can invest via i) Equipment plays (diesel genset, optic fiber, electricalequipment, transmission, etc., especially those with US exposure), or ii) Utilities, or iii)Companies building-owning the data-centers. In this note - we focus on the latter two assetheavy plays. We look at what happened in US and learnings for India. Eventually it all comesdown to access to electricity! Nikhil Nigania+91 226 842 1414nikhil.nigania@bernsteinsg.com Madison Rezaei+1 917 344 8622madison.rezaei@bernsteinsg.com Aman Jain+91 226 842 1486aman.jain@bernsteinsg.com a) Data Center traction: Our industry discussions highlight that given the M.East crisisDC capacity in India is likely to go to the higher end of the expected 5-8GW range by 2030(from 1.5 GW today). There is a big fight for land in Navi-Mumbai (we hear even higher thanlast transactions - Exhibit 13) and substation access for DCs. On capex, ex of compute it is~Rs 50 Cr/MW (lower than the US). b) Asset owners: Business models -2 operating models on DC owners:i) Real estatelandlords (don’t own compute hardware)- colocation:Build and lease out DC infra tohyperscalers/ neocloud/ enterprises (who bring their own compute hardware) in long termcontracts. E.g. DLR, Equinix- covered by Madison.ii)Cloud providers (compute hardwareowners):Own GPUs and may or may not own the physical data center. Neoclouds providerentals of fully developed GPU clusters (e.g. CRWV- covered by Madison, IREN whichown infra as well- covered by Gautam Chhugani). Neoclouds can generate ~8-10x higherrevenue per IT MW than co-location, but require much higher capex (~$45Mn vs. $8-15Mn),have shorter contracts, and carry tech obsolescence risk when compared to co-locationmodels. Payback period for the co-location model is ~5 years (Exhibit 4).Right to win-With ~ 6 yr avg. wait time in US for interconnect (Exhibit 9), access to power in the rightregion is the biggest right to win. Even crypto miners with power off-take agreementsare pivoting to DC colocation model.Valuations-DC operators like Equinix and DigitalRealty are trading at ~22-23x 12m fwd EV/EBITDA, in line with recent DC transactions-Blackstone(covered by Patrick Davitt) acquisition of AirTrunk at ~21x.DC in India(Exhibit12):Given land x power is the differentiator - the dominance of Adani Group (largestrenewable, private thermal, and transmission player in India) is unmatched, followed byReliance industries (0.5 Mn acres in Gujarat and >5K acres in Navi Mumbai, not covered). c) Utilities:In US, there is a big divergence in performance of utilities - Vistra, ConstellationEnergy, and NRG have become 4-8x in last 4 years, whereas others like NextEra, Dominionhave remained muted-(none covered, Exhibit 16 Exhibit 17). Drivers-i) Dispatchableopen capacity (Gas and Nuclear) in the right region:All 3 winners had significant capacityin PJM and ERCOT (biggest DC markets). PJM capacity prices rose from ~$29/MW-day in 2024/25 to ~$329/MW-day for 2026/27).ii) Access to land and behind-the-meter co-location(could this be game changer for Torrent’s gas plant?).iii) Premium forclean dispatchable power - Big Nuclear deals.Even coal plants benefited indirectly withretirement of >4.4 GW of coal capacity pushed out.IndianBeneficiaries?Adani groupcompletely dominates merchant power market and even future capacity addition - withtheir large land parcel, grid connectivity and locked thermal equipment (Exhibit 22). BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLE INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONS Within our coverage on the power generation front, the advantage of Adani Green and even Adani Power to power up data-centers is unmatched, given their large land parcel, transmission connectivity, merchant capacity, and thermal equipmentavailability. Beyond generators, L&T stands to gain via both play in building the DCs, power plants and even as DC owneroperator. We rate EQIX and DLR Outperform and CRWV Underperform. OTHER REPORTS 27 Mar 2026 - Bernstein Energy & Power: The Frontier of Electricity, what has changed...19 Feb 2026 - AI vs. Human: India the next stop for data-centers... assessing the value chain...24 Sep 2025 - Electric India: Powering the potential AI data center boom…15 May 2026 - Data Centers: What a top-tier data center market looks like—including the DLR and EQIX footprints DETAILS A) DATA-CENTER - ASSET OWNERS WHERE ARE DATA-CENTERS BEING BUILT IN US... PJM (the Eastern region of US) is the largest data center market in US, while ERCOT (Texas) builds have taken off relativelyrecently. Over 2015-25, power demand due to DCs has grown at a CAGR of 23% and 26% in PJM and ERCOT respectively vs21% for the US (18% ex-PJM and ERCOT)- Exhibit 1. They became DC hubs due to business friendly regu