NTT Communications, a unit of the Japan’s $112 billion NTT, opened  its ninth data center in India. The 30,000 square foot facility cost $124 million.

Here are excerpts from an interview of Tetsuya Shoji, president & CEO, NTT Communications with The Times of India:

On factors driving the need for the Indian data center, Shoji said that data centers were an important part of infrastructure. Of the many factors spurring their growth were e-commerce, as also the need for disaster recovery by existing and upcoming banks.

On the challenges that he saw, Shoji responded that since securing reliable access to electricity was the biggest challenge for banks in maintaining their own data centers, his company got the opportunity for business since banks preferred to outsource this part of business to them.

On being asked how his company expected to do in India, Shoji said, “India is where we want to make strategic investments. The latest Mumbai facility is not the last. We plan to have three more data centers in the near future.” On NTT’s application for a unified license for national long-distance services in India, Shoji explained that a separate Indian subsidiary of NTT had applied for the license which was meant for large Japanese clients.