The fire broke out on June 5 at a facility operated by STT Global Data Centres India, a joint venture between Singapore-based ST Telemedia and Tata Communications. According to company communications and sources familiar with the matter, the blaze caused extensive damage to parts of the site, severely affecting data recovery efforts and triggering network disruptions linked to Google Cloud services in India.
A letter dated June 15 from Novamesh, a Tata Communications unit, to client Matrix Cellular stated that the fire was so severe that it caused extensive damage and significantly hindered service restoration efforts. The letter acknowledged that despite ongoing attempts to recover data, the scale of destruction posed substantial challenges to restoring affected systems and information.
Tata Communications informed Indian stock exchanges on June 5 that it had activated business continuity plans immediately after the early-morning incident in an effort to minimise customer disruption.
The consequences have been particularly severe for Matrix Cellular, an Indian company that provides international SIM card services. Chief Executive Officer Gaurav Khanna said the company is struggling to recover more than two decades of accumulated operational and business data that was stored at the affected facility.
“Matrix has potentially lost access to over 20 years of accumulated operational and business data stored in the affected Tata data centre,” Khanna said. He added that customer information, usage records, support history, billing data, and vendor-related records were among the affected assets. According to Khanna, sales have fallen sharply as a result of the outage.
“It has been 20 days and they have not restored backup. If there is a backup it should have been restored by now,” he said.
The incident has also affected Google Cloud operations in India. On June 9, Google reported on its incidents page that a fire at a third-party data centre facility had required an emergency shutdown of networking equipment. Although Google did not identify the location, a source with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed that the company was referring to the same STT-Tata facility.
Google’s most recent update, issued on June 23, stated that no workaround was available and warned customers of possible latency issues until full restoration of the facility is completed. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
Television footage recorded inside the facility on the day of the fire showed extensive destruction, including server racks and electrical infrastructure that appeared completely burned. Ceiling panels had collapsed, and debris was scattered throughout the affected area.
While the cause of the fire remains under investigation, Delhi fire authorities said the blaze originated in lithium battery units.
STT Global Data Centres India stated that it is assisting affected customers and transferring them to alternative capacity wherever possible. The company said an independent technical root cause analysis is currently underway. According to its preliminary assessment, the damage was limited to a single data hall and associated infrastructure, while the remainder of the facility continues to operate.
Tata Communications said all customers who had subscribed to recovery and backup services had their services restored. The company added that additional recovery efforts continue wherever feasible.
Another affected client, Indian internet service provider R2 Net, has estimated losses of approximately $2 million as a result of the disruption and faces the possibility of losing customers. Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Singh said the fire affected vital tracking data stored on servers and used by law enforcement agencies to monitor illegal internet activity.
In an email dated June 23 and reviewed by Reuters, STT Global Data Centres India informed R2 Net that a detailed assessment and independent technical root cause analysis were in progress and expected to take between five and seven weeks.
Reuters was unable to identify additional affected companies. However, the potential impact is significant given Tata Communications’ global customer base. The company states that 300 Fortune 500 companies are among its clients and that its network connects businesses to 80 per cent of the world’s major cloud providers.
The incident adds to a series of recent challenges faced by the Tata Group. Tata Electronics recently disclosed a cybersecurity incident after a ransomware website published what it claimed were client documents linked to Apple and Tesla on the dark web.
In its communication to Matrix Cellular, Novamesh described the incident as an unfortunate force majeure event, stating that services covered under agreements at the affected facility had been hindered and that the situation remained under assessment.
The facility had been promoted as having a state-of-the-art fire protection and suppression system. The scale of destruction and the ongoing uncertainty surrounding data recovery have now raised serious questions about resilience, disaster preparedness, and data protection standards at one of India’s key digital infrastructure hubs. The incident has exposed the far-reaching risks that a single data centre failure can pose to businesses, cloud services, and critical digital operations across the country.
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