Betting big on the prospects and need for data centres, Billionaire Sunil Mittal led telecommunications major Bharti Airtel is planning to invest around Rs 3,500 crore to expand its present capacity by as much as three to five times over the next three years, reports Economic Times.

Bharti Airtel's present data centre capacity stands at 100 MW and through its subsidiary Nxtra Data, it is said to be planning to build as many as eight new data centres which would also include data parks. It should be noted that each data park is expected to store as much as 100 MW capacity.

Just last year, United States (US)-based private equity major Carlyle Group had bought a 25 per cent stake in Nxtra Data at a valuation of $1.2 billion.

The company's push for data centres comes as it looks to tap into the increasing need to store digital information locally amid a strong uptake in digital payments and the imminent launch of 5G services.

The development comes as the data centre space has attracted a lot of attention lately. Earlier this year, Ahmedabad-based Adani Group had also entered into the data centre space by forming a 50:50 joint venture with US-based EdgeConneX to build hyperscale data centre parks in six cities.