Raju Vegesna, CMD, Sify Technologies | Photo credit: Bijoy Ghosh
In 1998, it was thanks to Sify, the first Indian private ISP of India, that people experienced the Internet for the first time. Then, in 2005, the Raju Vegesna series technology entrepreneur bought Sify Technologies of the former promoters Satyam Computer Services. Since then, Sify has become a supplier of ICT services and solutions and ICT solutions of ₹ 4000 Crore with business lines in data centers, networks and digital services. The company now plans to invest $ 5 billion in the next five years, mainly in data centers.
The data center is not only real estate, but a technological game and a competition only do it better, he said Business line After Sify inaugurated his new Campus of the Data Center in Chennai on Thursday.Extracts:
His great movement was through the acquisition of Sify in 2005. What is Lef Sify’s journey in the last two decades?
When I took charge of Sify, I was focused on the consumer with broadband to house coffees and cybernetics. It was a great initiative. Sify was the first private supplier of internet services in India. Always five years, each company must have a change and look at it in the next five or six years. That is what we did at the beginning of our own private cloud and then we arrived at the business center business, which is great for the company now.
The competition is heavy in the data center sector, right?
There are certainly other people who build data centers. I don’t think I can supply myself for India. Competition is healthy and good for consumers. If you look at most of the data center players, they are thinking about it as a real estate game. But, the data center is not a real estate property but a technology. When we build the Sirusei Data Center, we are not building a more data center but a center ready for the AI from day one.
How much has Bone invested in the new data center?
This installation starts with ₹ 2.5 billion rupees. But as the workloads of AI, the company and the partners will build the entire ecosystem. Together, we will bring more than ₹ 10,000 million million investments in this campus in the next five years. The partners could be hyperscalers, business clients or public sector companies.
Will you have a data center in each state?
That is what we are going to do. We have already started in Luckknow and Chandigarh and we are in a discussion with other states.
In the next five years, what kind of investment can we expect in data centers?
Only in data centers, we will probably invest $ 5 billion.
How will you finance?
There is a lot of money available worldwide. Financing can be collected tomorrow. It is a matter of when you need it.
In the company’s finances, while income has improved, profitability remains a problem, isn’t it?
It is because I am spending all the money. For me, profits are not important. You have to invest continuously. A person who does not know how to invest their money, only gets profits when putting it in the bank. If I know how to invest my money and make my business grow, why do I care about earnings? I want to expand in a country like India and climb the business.
What could Sify’s income be in the next five years?
It must be ₹ 20,000 to ₹ 25,000 million rupees of ₹ 4000 million rupees more now. Now we have about 5,000 employees. In the next five years, directly and indirectly we can have between 30,000 and 40,000 people.
Posted on April 17, 2025