Mumbai: Bank loans to the technology infrastructure sector doubled in two years, regulatory data showed, reflecting India's emergence as the leading global hub for data centers and inhouse capability facilities for Fortune 500 companies.Loans to services that broadly included software development, IT services and digital technology infrastructure rose 49% year on year to ₹53,859 crore at the end of June, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed. These loans have almost doubled from ₹26,667 crore recorded two years ago.The loan growth from this segment, which is a part of the services sector, has been robust in the last two years and is only beaten by the sharp growth in traditional sectors, such as advances to public finance institutions and loans against gold jewellery, RBI data shows.The rise of data centres, global capability centres (GCCs) and IT enabled services are reflecting in bank credit as loans to these segments are growing at a fast clip.Bankers say that these loans include loans given broadly for IT services which could include GCCs, server and cloud infrastructure costs, corporate acquisitions, data localisation compliance and also cybersecurity upgrades.V R C Reddy, head of treasury at Karur Vysya Bank said that the trend of high credit to this segment is driven by expansion in digital infrastructure. "The sharp rise in computer software credit, driven by higher credit demand from firms supporting the expansion of data centres, hyperscalers and GCCs underscoring the rapid growth of India's digital infrastructure ecosystem," Reddy said.Digital Build-out Loans include funding for GCCs, cloud infrastructure, corporate acquisitions, data localisation and cybersecurity upgradesMadan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda said the data could include investments made by companies under the IT services linked sectors. "One possible reason for higher credit to the computer software sector could be investments being made in servers or even data centres by some companies which may be classified under this heading," he said.Bankers said software companies have traditionally been cash rich and have not been big borrowers from banks. But demand for credit is now coming from a variety of sources like startups, data centres or IT enabled services which make up the broader ecosystem."The data would include mid tier IT companies which require fund based working capital and pre and post shipment credit. GCCs which are setting up and scaling up operations would also be included and so would high end servers, data storage and to an extent startups which are also now part of the banking system," said a senior public sector bank executive.To be sure, the ₹53,859 crore at the end of June is a small part (just 0.87%) of the total ₹61.53 lakh crore loan outstanding of the services sector under which these loans are classified. It is an insignificant part of the ₹217 lakh crore total non food bank credit.