A major fire at a data centre in New Delhi used by several global technology companies has sparked concerns over potential data loss and disrupted cloud services, with some customers fearing that decades of critical business information may be unrecoverable.

The blaze occurred on June 5 at a facility operated by STT Global Data Centres India, a joint venture backed by Singapore’s ST Telemedia and Tata Communications. According to news agency Reuters, a letter sent by Tata Communications subsidiary Novamesh to one of its clients mentioned the fire caused “extensive damage” to parts of the facility, making data recovery efforts extremely challenging.

The incident has affected a number of customers, including Indian telecom services provider Matrix Cellular, which claims it may have lost access to more than 20 years of operational and business data stored at the site.

“Matrix has potentially lost access to over 20 years of accumulated operational and business data stored in the affected Tata data centre,” Matrix Cellular CEO Gaurav Khanna told Reuters. He added that despite nearly three weeks having passed since the incident, backup systems had not yet been restored.

The June 15 letter from Novamesh acknowledged the scale of the damage, stating that the severity of the fire had created significant obstacles to recovering affected systems and data. The company said it continues to make efforts to restore services but warned that the damage could limit recovery options.

The fire has also had a wider impact on cloud infrastructure. According to a source mentioned by news agency Reuters, some intermittent network disruptions experienced by Google Cloud customers in India were linked to the incident. Google had earlier disclosed that a fire at a third-party data centre required an emergency shutdown of networking equipment, though it did not identify the facility by name.

In an update issued on June 23, Google said some customers could continue to experience latency issues until full restoration is completed, adding that no alternative workaround was currently available.

Television footage from the facility on the day of the fire showed severe damage, including burnt server racks, destroyed electrical infrastructure, collapsed ceiling panels and debris scattered across the premises.

While the exact cause of the fire remains under investigation, Delhi Fire Services officials indicated that lithium battery units may have been involved. STT Global Data Centres India said an independent technical root-cause analysis is underway.

The company added that preliminary assessments suggest the damage was largely confined to a single data hall and related infrastructure, while the remainder of the facility continues to operate. It also said it is assisting affected customers by migrating workloads to alternative capacity wherever possible.

Published on: Jun 24, 2026 9:05 PM IST