Data centre player and AI ecosystem provider ESDS Software Solutions flagged data centre protests by local residents in India as a financial and strategic risk to the business, in its draft red herring prospectus for initial public offering.ESDS worked the potential impact of local dissent against data centres as one of the risks and considerations for the company in its latest IPO filing that increased the IPO size to ₹720 crore from last year’s issue of ₹600 crore.“Protests by local residents and activists against the opening of new Data Centres in India could adversely affect our ability to open new Data Centres. Further, such protests, whether or not directed specifically at our Company or our projects, may adversely affect the reputation and brand of our Company, and could adversely affect our relationships with regulators, customers, business partners, employees and other stakeholders,” said ESDS in its filing, worried about the potential impact on operations and cash flows. The company is one of the only two players in India providing the entire spectrum of GPUaaS, cloud, managed services, data centre infrastructure and software solutions and largest in terms of revenue from operations in FY26, as per its filings.Until last year, data centre players were not worried about local dissent regarding data centre establishment, Piyush Somani, Promoter, Chairman and Managing Director at ESDS, told businessline.“The protests were not there (in the DRHP) before. However, following the recent protests, we felt it was necessary to disclose and highlight the issue. Moving forward, we will ensure that data centres come in a proper industrial township and we don’t need any fresh water, no effluents flowing out of the data centre, no pollution. Anyway, all our data centres are either in industrial areas or IT parks,” said Somani, whose company plans to set up more data centres in Saibabad and Kolkata. Water consumption, power grid strain, land acquisition and displacement, lack of transparency and public consultation were among the key concerns flagged by the protesters across India.Married to marketRegardless of the risks, Somani remained resolute on the potential of the data centre business as highlighted by the company’s IPO move. ESDS fixed the price band of ₹408-429 per equity share, allowing investors to bid for a minimum of 34 equity shares and in multiples of 34 equity shares thereafter.Speaking on the market sentiment and demand, Somani said, “There is a lot of excitement in the market. The reason we are getting married to the markets is that married people are trusted more. We want to make sure that international and domestic customers feel comfortable doing business with us.”Earlier analysts such as Kranthi Bathini, Director, Equity Strategy at WealthMills Securities pointed out that the lack of dedicated data centre stocks creates hurdles for investors in assessing the market.Meanwhile, clients are putting in orders for 5,000-10,000 GPUs at a time, as per ESDS. Somani said the company will focus the capital from the IPO towards procuring 600-800 GPUs, as well as servers, network switches, storage and other cloud equipment. The issue will open on August 28 and close on September 1.Published on August 25, 2026