New Delhi, Feb. 8 -- India's 21-year tax holiday for foreign cloud providers, announced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her latest budget, has fuelled optimism across the technology sector. Politicians, industry executives, and analysts expect a surge in data-centre investments and employment.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, India's IT minister, said India could attract over $200 billion in data-centre investments over the years. Addressing a press conference at a 3DExperience World event in Houston, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said data centres could generate huge upstream and downstream employment in India, just the way the internet did.

However, execution is the key, and it faces several constraints, including land, energy,...