Zoho will have data centres in almost every country by 2030: CEO Sridhar Vembu

Zoho Corporation is planning to establish data centres in every country worldwide by the end of this decade, said CEO Sridhar Vembu. 

With data sovereignty being the key focus, the Chennai-based SaaS giant has currently set up 18 data centres and aims to set up many more in the near future. 

“We are planning steadily that every year we add two, three or four more [data centres]. More and more countries are now hopping on this data sovereignty trend and ensuring privacy protection and security for their own citizens—that trend is here to stay. I think in 5-10 years, if you don't have a data centre in the country, you cannot serve the customers. That's where it's getting, so we are prepared for that,” Sridhar Vembu told YourStory. 

“We are setting up data centres everywhere. That's a very concrete action we have taken. Now we have over 18 data centres. By the end of this decade, we probably will cover almost every country in the world,” he added. 

Zoho made several new announcements at Zoholics India, the company's annual user conference. The firm introduced Vikra—a seller app on the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and Zoho IoT, a low-code platform enabling support businesses to build and deploy custom IoT (Internet of Things) solutions.

The company is actively enhancing its AI capabilities by developing and deploying various language models, spanning from narrow, small, medium, and large—built for specific use cases across its products. 

According to Vembu, this includes specialised vertical training that provides customers and businesses with "invisible AI" through context-specific models.

“Context-specific models offer customers like invisible AI. That's why it’s called contextual intelligence—it's invisible to you but it's still intelligent that's helping us. But more work we are doing is on the foundational side where truthful AI can help you with the software productivity, but by generating good, quality code that can be relied upon,” Vembu explains. 

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On growth and expansion

As of this year, the Chennai-based company has recorded 26% customer growth in India, compared with 31% in 2023. Vembu said that its new offerings aim to reduce costs for merchants and attract more customers by lowering online transaction fees and taxes.

The company also aims to enable its customers to transact commerce online with low fees and taxes. "I look at the large digital platforms as a huge tax on merchants…how do you lower the tax burden, that is what we are working on,” he explained. 

The top five countries by revenue—the US, India, the UK, Canada, and Australia—are key markets for Zoho. Vembu says this interest is increasing further, attracting new markets. 

“The Middle East is huge now. We're growing very rapidly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We are also expanding in Dubai and have a new office in Riyadh. There's a lot of investments going on in the Middle East as well,” Vembu said. 

The company is also gaining traction from regions such as Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and Colombia, among others.

Zoho also has grand plans to venture into the semiconductor industry. Vembu said the company has submitted its application to the government, with evaluation on various fronts currently in progress. 

“It's premature to talk about it because we have filed an application and that's still pending. The government will fund part of the capital investment; that's the reason why it is involved. The government very much wants semiconductor fab (fabrication) plants here; it is very energised about this matter,” Vembu said. 

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Commenting on the IndiaAI Mission, Vembu said, “While we are [focused] on our own private investment, the government's focus is to get foundational technology. We are also focused on that. We are going to be working with organisations like IITs and CSARs, which are sometimes funded by the government,” he said. 

Vembu points out that while there is FOMO (fear of missing out) in AI, similar to past trends in SaaS and cryptocurrency, the space is also filled with hype. 

“There a lot of money chasing this,” he noted. 

“We tend to be a company that quietly adopts the technology, puts it to good use, and shows customer value. Whatever we do, we don't like to hype it—that includes AI. So, we would like to stay out of the hype, but do quality work,” he added.