RBI Launches Strategic High-Security Data Centre in Odisha to Protect Financial Systems
In a significant move to bolster the resilience of India's financial infrastructure, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has established a state-of-the-art high-security data centre in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. This greenfield facility is strategically positioned away from potential cross-border threat zones and high seismic-risk regions, aiming to ensure uninterrupted functioning of critical systems.
Strategic Location and Design for Enhanced Safety
The new data centre, located on an 18.55-acre campus at Info Valley-II in Khordha, began construction in 2023. Analysts and officials highlight that its placement in Odisha offers multiple strategic advantages. The site is situated well away from India's western and northern borders, reducing exposure to potential missile or drone threats. Additionally, it lies outside the country's highest seismic risk zones, which strengthens the safety and continuity framework for infrastructure supporting essential financial operations.
This facility is designed to host core computing systems that manage the central bank's currency management, payment and settlement operations, and regulatory data functions. With Tier IV certification for design, it complies with the highest standards of reliability and performance, incorporating high redundancy, resilience, and in-built fault tolerance to maintain system availability.
Broader Global Trend in Financial Infrastructure Security
The RBI's initiative reflects a global trend among central banks and major financial institutions to secure sensitive infrastructure under direct institutional control. Analysts note that safety, resilience, and operational continuity are increasingly driving such investments. By building dedicated secured data centres, institutions prioritize data protection, operational control, and systemic resilience over reliance on shared public infrastructure.
Direct ownership enables stricter security enforcement, redundancy planning, and regulatory compliance. This approach is crucial as financial data is now viewed as critical national infrastructure, with protection from cyberattacks, vendor lock-in, and operational disruptions becoming key drivers behind these investments.
Mitigating Risks and Enhancing Cyber Resilience
Analysts point out that Odisha is not a landing point for major subsea communication cables, unlike Mumbai or Chennai, which host a significant share of India's data infrastructure. Locating the facility away from dense digital traffic corridors helps insulate it from concentrated cyber risks and network vulnerabilities. This strategy gained relevance last year when a leading commercial bank reportedly shifted its data centre operations overnight from Jaipur to Mumbai amid heightened tensions during India-Pakistan conflicts involving drone activity near border regions.
Odisha also offers abundant land, water, and power resources while providing strategic depth from potential cross-border threats. Large parts of the state lie in relatively lower seismic-risk zones compared to the Himalayan belt, avoiding concentration of critical infrastructure in high-risk corridors.
Expanding India's Sovereign Digital Backbone
This is RBI's second data centre after its Primary Data Centre in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. The move aligns with India's development of a sovereign digital backbone for banks and payment systems, similar to secured facilities like the US Federal Reserve Bank's East Rutherford Operations Center. Other institutions, such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India and State Bank of India, are also building or developing their own data centres.
With rapid growth in digital transactions and real-time payment systems, secure data infrastructure is being treated as a cornerstone of financial stability rather than merely an IT asset. As of 2025, RBI is additionally launching a pilot cloud facility with data centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad to provide local cloud storage services to financial firms.
An analyst emphasized, "With financial data now treated as critical national infrastructure, the RBI's move signals a broader policy thrust: retain tight institutional control over mission-critical systems, minimise exposure to external threats, and ensure uninterrupted functioning of the country's financial backbone under extreme scenarios." An email sent to RBI seeking comments remained unanswered, underscoring the confidential nature of such strategic initiatives.
