Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), eligible early-stage startups will receive USD 2,500 worth of Vultr cloud credits, along with a 20 per cent discount, while startups beyond the early-stage funding threshold will be eligible for USD 45,000 in credits and the same discount.
The initiative aims to reduce infrastructure costs and enable startups to access computing resources for product development, experimentation and deployment, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep technology.
Piyush Gupta, Vice-President, India, APAC and the Middle East, Vultr, said the partnership would extend beyond providing cloud credits to offering technical assistance to startups and medium-sized enterprises in Tamil Nadu.
“Today only we signed up an MoU with StartupTN, which will help the medium enterprises, the startups of Tamil Nadu. We will be there to handle the startups, to walk through the cloud matrix and up their game, and we are all in,” he said.
India customer base
Amit Rai, General Manager, AI & Enterprise Cloud, Vultr, highlighted the company’s presence in the Indian market, particularly among startups and businesses building technology products.
“We have more than 10,000 customers in India, active customers,” Rai said, adding that the company continued to support startups and enterprises with cloud infrastructure requirements.
He also pointed to the growing demand from businesses with global operations that are increasingly using India for technology development and production workloads.
Investing in developer ecosystem
Kevin Cochrane, Chief Marketing Officer, Vultr, said the company’s India strategy was not limited to expanding computing infrastructure but also involved developing the country’s technology talent.
“We actually run over 250 hackathons here in India annually,” Cochrane said, highlighting the company’s efforts to provide developers with access to computing resources and opportunities to build cloud-native applications.
Vultr works with around seven universities and provides free access to its computing services for students. The company has also partnered with Polaris to support practical learning in cloud computing and application development.
Focus on energy and water efficiency
Vultr is establishing its data centre in Ambattur, Chennai as a key hub for its AI infrastructure and global operations, with a 20 MW AI supercompute cluster and plans to expand its local workforce and computing capacity. ”
This is just the start of the investment we’re going to be making here in Chennai,” said Cochrane.
 Addressing concerns over the environmental impact of data centres, he said Vultr was working with infrastructure partners to improve power and water efficiency.
The company is working with Supermicro, which supplies the server racks for the facility, to optimise energy consumption and cooling requirements, Cochrane added.
He said Vultr’s commitment across its data centre regions was to use resources efficiently and make its infrastructure as sustainable as possible.
However, Cochrane did not disclose specific figures on power consumption or water usage at the Chennai facility.
Looking ahead, Vultr is evaluating further capacity expansion in India, with a longer-term ambition of reaching 1 GW.
Rai said the company would aim to have 600 MW operational by 2028, with further expansion planned into 2029.