By Priyank Kharge

Copyright thehindu

The vision document of the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) for Mangaluru Cluster, comprising Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada and Kodagu districts, has said that undersea cable connectivity will be a critical enabler to strengthen Mangaluru’s positioning as a global data center hub.

Direct landing stations and subsea cable routes will provide low-latency, high-capacity international bandwidth, making the hub globally competitive for hyperscalers, cloud providers, and AI-driven enterprises, the document said.

Cable route options

The document proposed three cable route options. Referring to the first option, it said Middle East and Europe route (Oman/UAE → Mangaluru → onward to Chennai/Singapore) will provide direct low-latency path from West Asia and Europe, bypassing congested Mumbai landing stations.

The second option, South East Asia extension route (Singapore → Colombo → Mangaluru → onward to Middle East/Africa) provides a Bangaluru+1 backup for hyperscalers, routing traffic to Southeast Asia.

The third option mentioned is regional loop with Kochi and Chennai (Chennai Kochi Mangaluru which is terrestrial + subsea loop).

Mangaluru to complement Bengaluru

Aiming to establishing Mangaluru as a global AI data centre hub. the document said KDEM, under its Beyond Bengaluru initiative, envisions positioning Mangaluru as a strategic hub for next-generation data centers. Leveraging its coastal advantage, emerging digital infrastructure, renewable energy ecosystem, and talent base, Mangaluru will complement Bengaluru as a ‘Bengaluru+1’ location while serving as a resilient backup site for global capability centers (GCCs).

Job creation

Establishing the Mangaluru data centre hub is expected to generate over 25,000 direct and indirect jobs across multiple sectors, the document released by Priyank Kharge, Minister for Electronics, Information Technology, Bio-technology in the city on September 24, 2025, said.

Employment creation includes 8,000 jobs in construction and infrastructure sector (civil works, electrical, cooling, logistics); 7,000 jobs in IT/BT and cloud services (data center operations, AI infra management, cloud engineering); 5,000 jobs in operations and maintenance (facilities management, power systems, security); 3,000 jobs in renewable energy and utilities (green power projects, grid integration, cooling solutions); and 2,000 jobs in ancillary and allied industries (transport, food, services, SMEs in the data centre ecosystem).

Giga scale data centre

The 54-page document said that Mangaluru is envisioned as a giga-scale data center cluster, with planned capacity exceeding 1 GW over the next decade.

“The ‘Grid-to-Chip’ strategy ensures integration of renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro) with advanced cooling, high-density compute, and chip-level optimisation for AI and cloud workloads,” it said.