Bhubaneswar: The founder of leading Indian SaaS company Zoho Corporation, Sridhar Vembu, has announced that a new data center will soon be established in Odisha. The move is part of Zoho’s commitment to data localisation and to supporting India’s growing digital ecosystem.
The company is known for its suite of business software, particularly cloud-based tools and applications. It offers a wide range of products designed to help businesses with tasks such as customer relationship management (CRM), office productivity, accounting, project management, email hosting, and more. One of its offerings is ‘Arattai,’ a homegrown messaging app positioned as an alternative to WhatsApp and Telegram.
The Arattai app, whose name means “casual talk” or “chit-chat,” has seen a spike in downloads following Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s call to promote Indian digital platforms under the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
In a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Vembu emphasised that Indian customer data is already hosted in Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai, with Odisha joining the list soon.
“Indian customer data is hosted in India (Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai — soon, Odisha). We have over 18 data centers globally, and they host the respective country or regional data. We are committed to hosting each country’s data in its own jurisdiction,” he stated.
Vembu also highlighted Zoho’s deep-rooted Indian operations, noting that all of its products are developed domestically.
“Our global headquarters is in Chennai and we pay taxes in India on our global income. As a global corporation headquartered in India, we have offices in over 80 countries and a strong presence in the United States, which remains a key market for us,” he said.
The company’s technological independence was also underscored. Zoho operates on its own hardware and custom-built software frameworks based on open-source technologies such as Linux and PostgreSQL.
“We do not host our products on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Arattai, specifically, is not hosted on any of these platforms. While we use some services for regional traffic switching, no data is stored there. We are currently adding more Points of Presence (POPs) globally to improve performance,” Vembu clarified.
He concluded by reaffirming Zoho’s mission, “We are proudly Made in India, Made for the World — and we mean it.”
