Every digital activity leaves a physical trail. When you make a UPI payment, stream Netflix, back up WhatsApp, place a stock market trade or ask ChatGPT a question, that request travels to a data centre, where servers process it and send a response back in milliseconds. Once seen as the Internet’s invisible plumbing, data centres are now at the centre of a global infrastructure boom driven by AI, cloud computing and surging digital traffic.The data centre industry uses an unusual convention: Although operators are effectively digital landlords renting out space and computing capacity, facilities are sized and marketed by the…