There is no such thing as a data centre power or water crisis anywhere in the world. Data centre requirements for India in the foreseeable future (say 36 months) are minuscule. But the false narrative of a water or power crisis is being used to move data out.
MCX is the latest example
A direct question was asked about MCX’s proposed relocation of its primary trading infrastructure. Did SEBI approve it?
The answer: “No permission was given.”
SEBI knew MCX wanted to move its infrastructure. The proposal had been discussed with the regulator.
MCX subsequently notified members that its primary data-centre infrastructure was being migrated.
The question arising is:
Who is responsible for the architecture of India’s price discovery?
An exchange is ultimately a machine for discovering market prices. Those prices do not stop at a trading screen. They flow into businesses, banks, imports, jewellery, collateral and household wealth. The matching engine is therefore not merely IT infrastructure.
It is part of India’s economic infrastructure.
MCX has announced plans to migrate its primary data-centre infrastructure to a third party facility. But no one knows:
What connectivity will be available?
What are the latency differences?
Who controls physical access?
Who independently audits the arrangement?
WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE
India’s NSE co-location episode should have permanently changed how we think about market infrastructure. But it hasn’t.
The deepest lesson was not about one exchange. It was about architecture.
Because in electronic markets: Distance becomes time. Time becomes latency. Latency can become advantage.
And when advantage is embedded into infrastructure, it can become institutionalised. That is why regulation cannot simply arrive after the architecture has been built.
This is where independent directors and public-interest directors matter.
Not as names on an annual report. Not as eminent personalities lending prestige.
But as guardians of institutional purpose.
When an exchange moves the heart of its trading infrastructure into a third-party facility, the board should ask:
Who controls the critical infrastructure?
Who gets proximity?
Who gets information?
Who has the power to intervene?
And who is accountable when something goes wrong?
These are not anti-business questions. They are the questions of serious capitalism. Are we operating an organisation — or stewarding an institution?
The distinction is enormous.
An organisation can optimise for the quarter. An institution must think in decades.
An organisation can outsource infrastructure. An institution must understand what it cannot afford to outsource.
INDIA CANNOT BUILD GLOBAL MARKETS WITH SMALL QUESTIONS
If Mumbai is to become a global financial centre, India’s exchanges will need world-class:
Data centres.
Connectivity.
Cybersecurity.
But above all:
WORLD-CLASS GOVERNANCE.
