Cooling, Water and Carbon Metrics: How BIS Standards Are Shaping India’s Data Centres

India’s data centre sector is expanding rapidly, driven by the growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing reliance on digital infrastructure across commercial activities. As of early 2026, India has approximately 271 data centres, with total operational power capacity estimated at around 1.57-1.79 GW.

To support greater efficiency and sustainability across the sector, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has developed standards and measurement methodologies for assessing resource utilisation in data centres. These frameworks provide operators with standardised metrics to evaluate key performance parameters related to electricity consumption, cooling efficiency, water use, and carbon emissions. By applying these metrics, data centre operators can benchmark facility performance, identify opportunities to improve resource efficiency, strengthen sustainability reporting, and inform operational and infrastructure planning.

What are BIS standards for data centres?

BIS standards provide standardised methods for measuring and evaluating data centre performance. The framework incorporates the ISO/IEC 30134 series of key performance indicators, along with the IS/ISO/IEC 22237 series, which addresses areas including power distribution and environmental control.

Source: Know your standards, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)

The standards provide a common basis for determining how efficiently a facility uses resources and how effectively its supporting infrastructure performs.

Key BIS metrics for data centres in India

As per the central government, the quality standards for data centres are based on the following metrics:

1. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE): Measures the total energy consumed by a data centre relative to the energy used by its IT equipment. A lower PUE generally indicates better energy efficiency.
2. Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE): Measures the amount of water a data centre consumes in relation to the energy used by its IT equipment, helping operators assess water efficiency.
3. Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE): Measures the carbon emissions associated with a data centre’s energy use relative to the energy consumed by its IT equipment.
4. Cooling Efficiency Ratio (CER): Measures the efficiency of a data centre’s cooling system in removing heat relative to the energy consumed by the cooling system.

Together, these measures can help businesses compare performance across facilities and identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption, water use, cooling-related costs, and associated emissions.

Why cooling efficiency is becoming more important

Cooling is a critical component of data centre infrastructure because computing equipment continuously generates heat. As businesses deploy more AI workloads and high-density servers, thermal management becomes more challenging.

The BIS framework gives operators a more detailed way to evaluate this issue. CER focuses on cooling energy, while WUE brings water consumption into the assessment. Considering the two metrics together can help businesses understand whether a cooling architecture is genuinely improving resource efficiency or simply shifting consumption from electricity to water.

Importantly, the standards do not require operators to adopt liquid cooling or any other particular technology. Instead, they encourage businesses to evaluate cooling systems according to measurable performance outcomes.

This gives operators flexibility to evaluate air cooling, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, immersion cooling, or other approaches according to the requirements and conditions of each facility.

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BIS standards and water management

The BIS standards do not replace India’s existing water and environmental regulations. Data centre operators must continue to consider applicable requirements governing groundwater extraction, water use, wastewater discharge, and environmental approvals.

The source notes that water regulation can vary between locations, creating different operating conditions for data centre businesses across states. Against this background, common BIS metrics such as WUE can provide a consistent method for comparing water performance across facilities.

Businesses can therefore use WUE not only as a sustainability indicator but also as an input when selecting locations, cooling technologies, and facility designs.

Are BIS data centre standards mandatory?

This is an important distinction for businesses.

The standards are currently voluntary rather than mandatory. They become enforceable only if the central government subsequently makes them mandatory through an appropriate mechanism, such as a Quality Control Order (QCO).

Therefore, businesses should not interpret the existence of a BIS standard as automatically creating a statutory requirement for every data centre to meet a particular efficiency threshold.

However, voluntary status does not make the standards irrelevant. They can provide a common technical framework for designing, specifying, measuring, and comparing data centre infrastructure.

Why businesses should take note

1. Data centre design is becoming more performance-driven

Businesses planning new facilities or expanding existing infrastructure can use the BIS metrics to establish measurable performance objectives. Rather than specifying only cooling capacity or equipment ratings, project teams can consider the efficiency outcomes that the overall facility is expected to achieve.

2. AI is increasing cooling requirements

AI workloads require high-performance computing equipment that can generate substantially greater heat at the rack level. This makes thermal management an increasingly important consideration when designing data centre infrastructure.

CER can help businesses evaluate whether their cooling architecture is efficiently managing the resulting IT load.

3. Energy and water need to be assessed together

A cooling solution that reduces electricity consumption may increase water consumption. Businesses therefore need to consider the broader resource implications of their infrastructure.

Using PUE, CER, and WUE together provides a more comprehensive picture than relying on a single efficiency metric.

4. Sustainability reporting can become more data-driven

Standardised performance measurements can help businesses establish consistent internal benchmarks for energy, water, carbon, and cooling performance. This can support sustainability planning and provide more structured operational data for environmental reporting.

5. It can improve consistency across multiple facilities

For hyperscalers, colocation providers, and other businesses operating facilities in different locations, common measurement methodologies can make it easier to compare performance across sites.

This is particularly useful in India because data centre facilities can operate under different local conditions relating to water availability, environmental requirements, infrastructure, and permitting.

6. Businesses can prepare before standards become mandatory

Although the standards are currently voluntary, businesses can incorporate their measurement principles into design briefs, procurement specifications, contracts, and facility-performance monitoring.

The source recommends defining measurement boundaries, metering requirements, and the operating data needed to calculate CER and WUE. It also suggests assessing how facilities would respond if voluntary benchmarks were subsequently incorporated into procurement or regulatory requirements.

Looking ahead

India’s BIS data centre standards represent a shift toward more consistent measurement of infrastructure performance. Their immediate significance is not that they mandate a particular cooling technology or impose universal efficiency targets, but that they provide businesses with recognised methods for measuring how efficiently data centres use energy, water, and cooling resources.

For businesses investing in India’s data centre ecosystem, these standards are therefore worth monitoring even while they remain voluntary. As AI increases computing density and data centre capacity expands, resource efficiency and measurable infrastructure performance are likely to become increasingly important factors in facility design, investment, procurement, and long-term operational planning.