New Delhi, June 17 -- Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, one of the biggest foreign institutional investors into the Indian infrastructure sector, is set to enter the country's growing data centre space with an investment of up to Rs 7,000 crore ($740.5 million at current exchange rates) into Indian data centre operator CtrlS Datacenters Ltd.
Under the agreement, the North American nation's biggest pension fund will invest around Rs 4,000 crore to acquire an 8.2% stake in CtrlS. This values CtrlS around Rs 44,824 crore ($4.74 billion) on a pre-money basis, the Indian company said in a statement.
The two partners will also form a joint venture to develop hyperscale data centre campuses across India, with CPPIB committing Rs 3,000 crore for a 48% stake and CtrlS holding the remaining 52%.
The transaction marks CPPIB's first direct equity investment in an Indian data centre operator and comes about five months after VCCircle first reported on the Canadian pension fund's interest in acquiring a stake in CtrlS.
CtrlS, founded in 2007, is led by founder and CEO Sridhar Pinnapureddy. It set up its first data centre in Hyderabad in 2009. The company currently has 16 operational data centres across nine locations, according to its website. These include five in Mumbai, three in Hyderabad, two in Chennai, and one each in Noida, Lucknow, Patna, Bengaluru and Kolkata.
The company mainly offers two types of services-co-location services and managed hosting services. Its co-location services allow customers to bring in their own rack-mountable servers and house them in shared racks or hire complete racks. It also offers managed hosting services such as storage, back-up and restoration, performance monitoring and reporting, hardware and software procurement and network configuration.
The company's clientele is diversified and spans global cloud providers, large enterprises, and small and medium businesses, including technology companies and banking, financial services and insurance companies.
The company's consolidated revenue from operations rose to around Rs 1,567 crore in FY25 from Rs 1,339 crore in FY24, according to available data, though net profit saw some moderation amid higher interest costs.
The investment builds on CPPIB's growing focus on the data centre sector globally since its first direct investment in 2017. It has since built a diversified portfolio of data centre assets and joint ventures across major hubs in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe, including a recent €8 billion partnership with Goodman Group in Europe announced in late 2025.
It also extends the Canadian fund's long-standing presence in India, where it made its first investment in 2009 and opened a Mumbai office in 2015. As of March 31, 2026, CPPIB had over $21 billion (around C$27 billion or Rs 1.85 trillion) in net assets in India, spanning infrastructure, real estate, private equity, credit and public markets. The fund has partnered with local players including Phoenix Mills, RMZ Corp, IndoSpace for logistics, and invested in National Highways Infra Trust, among others.
"As one of the world's fastest growing digital markets, India represents an important pillar of our global data centre strategy," said Max Biagosch, senior managing director and global head of real assets at CPP Investments. "Demand for data centre infrastructure in India continues to accelerate, driven by hyperscale expansion, strong domestic cloud growth and emerging AI-led demand."
"India's AI moment is not on the horizon, it is already here," said Pinnapureddy. "The demand signals from hyperscalers, cloud providers, and enterprises are clear and unmistakable."
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.