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EconomyRBI

Modi to open RBI's ₹169-crore data centre at Jatni, its second after Navi Mumbai

The Odisha facility will host payment and settlement systems away from seismic zones and border areas. A cybersecurity training institute for the central bank opens alongside it this evening.

From the editorial desk · BhubaneswarPublished
Reserve Bank of India office (file photo)
Reserve Bank of India office (file photo)Photo: Pinakpani / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Key points

  1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to inaugurate the RBI's ₹169-crore data centre at Jatni on Sunday evening.
  2. The site will host mission-critical payment and settlement systems and is the RBI's second such centre after Navi Mumbai.
  3. A new Cybersecurity Training Institute will train RBI staff in areas from AI to quantum computing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due on Sunday evening to inaugurate a ₹169-crore data centre built by the Reserve Bank of India at Jatni, on the edge of Bhubaneswar, along with a training institute meant to sharpen the central bank’s defences against cyber attacks.

The facility sits on 18.55 acres at Info Valley-II in Khordha district. It has been built to carry the RBI’s own computing load and to host mission-critical payment and settlement systems, the plumbing through which money moves between banks every day.

“The data centre will form the secure digital foundation on which India’s increasingly technology-driven financial economy can grow,” the government said in a statement ahead of the visit.

Why Odisha

The site was chosen for its geographic stability, away from seismically active zones and from high-risk border areas. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said it would be the RBI’s second such data centre, after Navi Mumbai, giving the central bank a second home for its core systems far from the first.

Majhi said the facility would “give new momentum to the security of the country’s financial data and the growth of the digital economy”. He noted that this would be the Prime Minister’s ninth visit to Odisha since the BJP formed the state government in 2024.

The foundation stone for both buildings was laid on 22 March 2023 by Shaktikanta Das, then the RBI Governor.

Training for a sharper threat

The Cybersecurity Training Institute opening alongside the data centre is meant to build the technical skills of RBI staff as cyber threats grow. It is designed as a platform for training and research in cybersecurity and enterprise technology, with a focus on quantum computing, artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies relevant to banking, financial services and insurance. The RBI also plans to use it for capability building across the wider financial sector.

The opening comes as banks face closer questions about how they guard customer data. State Bank of India told customers this week that their money was safe after their details turned up in a suspected leak on the dark web.

The evening’s schedule

Modi is expected to land at Biju Patnaik International Airport at about 4:10 pm on an Indian Air Force aircraft, after a day in Varanasi. He will fly by helicopter towards Khordha and spend about an hour at the campus, with the programme set for 4:45 pm to 5:45 pm, before returning to the airport by road and leaving for New Delhi at about 6:30 pm.

About 2,100 police personnel have been deployed for the visit, and traffic will be restricted on the route between the data centre and the airport from 5:40 pm to 6:40 pm.