New Delhi, March 11 (NationPress) The data centre sector in India is poised for substantial growth in the coming years, with projections indicating a rise from $5.55 billion in 2025 to $13.11 billion by 2034, as detailed in a recent report published on Wednesday.

The report, produced by Quess Corp, emphasizes the need for a robust workforce to support the nation’s burgeoning digital infrastructure while also highlighting a widening gap between infrastructure investments and the availability of qualified professionals.

Over the next decade, the industry is anticipated to grow by approximately 136 percent, sustained by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 percent from 2026 to 2034.

Currently, India’s data centre and cloud infrastructure landscape employs roughly 86,000–90,000 individuals across more than 50 service providers.

However, the research points out that the primary challenge facing the next phase of industry development is transitioning from capital and power supply constraints to a significant shortage of a specialized, “skill-ready” workforce.

As the sector evolves into a hyperscale model featuring large gigawatt-scale facilities, the study cautions about a potential “infrastructure-talent mismatch.”

Additionally, the report notes that the Supply Sufficiency Index (SSI) for AI Operations currently stands at a low of 47, indicating a critical lack of talent necessary to manage the forthcoming generation of data infrastructure.

Kapil Joshi, CEO of IT Staffing at Quess Corp, remarked that India is at a pivotal moment where infrastructure development must align with enhanced technical capabilities.

“Achieving a valuation of $13 billion showcases India’s digital growth, yet the sustainability of this infrastructure hinges on our capacity to close the skill gap,” stated Joshi.

The report also pointed to the swift increase in artificial intelligence workloads, which are expected to represent nearly 30 percent of total data centre capacity by 2026.

This shift is likely to prompt a 133 percent surge in demand for specialized skills in areas such as cloud computing, DevOps, security, and compliance by 2029.

Concurrently, IT operations are facing a 73 percent deficit in critical operational roles including infrastructure monitoring, incident response, and network management.

In terms of sector demand, the IT and telecom industries constitute about 48 percent of the data centre capacity needs, followed by the BFSI sector at 20 percent and government workloads at approximately 10 percent, as reported.