The National Payments Corporation of India will set up a tier IV data centre in Chennai, the consortium of banks announced on May 20. NPCI said that this will be Chennai's first tier IV data centre, a classification that indicates twice the needed capacity plus a backup for all operations. While NPCI did not specifically mention what services will run out of here, it is possible that transactions over IMPS and UPI, which NPCI governs, will be processed here. The company's statement simply stated that "major services under the DIGITAL INDIA [sic] initiatives" will be operated out of here. The centre will be located in the SIPCOT Information Technology Park in Siruseri with what the consortium describes as "8 layers of security system". In tier IV data centres, systems are required to have a high level of guaranteed availability, with downtime of not more than 26 minutes per year. They should also have 96 hours' worth of power backup and twice the amount of infrastructure needed. Larsen & Toubro is the turnkey contractor for the project, and L&T Constructions is the only company to have a tier IV certification in Chennai from the Uptime Institute. NPCI announced last April that they would set up a Hyderabad data centre, along with a sprawling $4.5 million campus in the city. Prior to this, the company was reportedly leasing data centre capacity from a third party.
