Every time you scan a QR code at a chai stall or move money through NEFT, the record lands on servers run deep inside the Reserve Bank of India. On Sunday, the RBI added a second home for that data, and it is in Odisha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 25, 2026 inaugurated the RBI’s new greenfield Data Centre and Enterprise Computing & Cybersecurity Training Institute at Info Valley-II in Jatni, Khordha district, near Bhubaneswar. The facility cost an estimated Rs 169 crore, sits on 18.55 acres, and is the central bank’s second data centre after the one in Navi Mumbai.
Quick Facts
- Who: PM Narendra Modi, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi among those present
- What: Inauguration of the RBI’s new Data Centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute
- When: Sunday, October 25, 2026
- Where: Info Valley-II, Jatni, Khordha district, near Bhubaneswar, Odisha
- Key numbers: Rs 169 crore estimated cost, 18.55-acre campus, RBI’s second data centre
What the RBI Data Centre in Odisha Will Do
Think of it as a second, very well-guarded engine room for India’s money system. According to reports from the event, the centre is meant to make critical payment systems such as RTGS and NEFT more secure and resilient, and to help keep banking services running if there is a cyberattack, a technical failure or some other disruption.
It will also store and manage data from digital transactions, including UPI, NEFT and RTGS, as per OdishaTV. The new setup is built around cloud computing, artificial intelligence and big data analytics.
Right now, the RBI’s main data centre is in Navi Mumbai. Having a second site in a different part of the country is a standard safety move: if one location has a problem, the other can help keep things going.
A Cybersecurity Training Institute Under the Same Roof
The campus is not just racks of servers. It also houses a training institute that will focus on cybersecurity, AI and data centre technology, with a dedicated research wing, Deccan Chronicle reported. The idea is to build in-house skills to deal with fast-changing cyber threats.
Modi touched on this in his speech, saying a strong data infrastructure is needed to protect the banking system and that cybersecurity needs trained professionals. He also said the data centre sector could open new opportunities for young people in Odisha.
What Modi and Sitharaman Said in Bhubaneswar
Opening with “Jai Jagannath”, the Prime Minister framed the facility as a matter of national security as much as banking. “Nowadays, wars are not fought only with weapons,” he said, adding that a country can be weakened by attacks on its economy.
He called Odisha a growth engine for Viksit Bharat and described the government’s approach as “pro-people, proactive good governance”. He also spoke about the spread of bank accounts, cards and insurance, and criticised previous Congress governments over access to banking, according to Kalinga TV’s report of the speech.
Sitharaman, who spoke about digital payments, described data centres as the “vault of the digital age”. Deccan Chronicle’s report of the event put UPI volumes at more than 2,400 crore transactions a month, or close to 80 crore a day.
After the event, Modi held a roadshow from Jatni to Bhubaneswar airport before flying back to New Delhi. Police deployed 57 platoons, along with five platoons of central armed police forces, and traffic curbs were in place in Bhubaneswar, OdishaTV reported.
Why It Matters for India’s Digital Payments
Digital payments are now part of daily life. Rent, school fees, a Rs 20 auto ride, salary credits and loan EMIs all run on systems the RBI oversees or operates. When volumes run into crores of transactions a day, even a short outage can cause real trouble for shops, banks and families.
A second data centre and a dedicated pool of cyber-trained staff are meant to reduce that risk. It also puts Odisha on the map for tech infrastructure, which state leaders have been pushing for alongside its better-known mining and steel industries.
Background: From Foundation Stone to Launch
The foundation stone for the project was laid in March 2023 by then RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, who at the time said the centre would serve the emerging needs of the Reserve Bank and the financial sector. The inauguration had been scheduled for October 25 well in advance, as part of Modi’s one-day Odisha visit.
What We Don’t Know Yet
- When the centre will be fully operational and handling live workloads has not been spelled out in the reports we reviewed.
- How many people the training institute will train each year, or how many jobs the campus will create locally, has not been announced.
What This Means for You
Nothing changes in how you pay. Your UPI apps, net banking and cards will work exactly as before. The new centre works in the background to make outages less likely.
A safer system does not protect you from scams on your own phone, though. Never share your UPI PIN or OTP, remember that you never need to enter a PIN to receive money, and report fraud quickly on the national cybercrime helpline 1930 or at cybercrime.gov.in.
Our Take
Data centres rarely make headlines, and that is how it should be. If this one does its job, most Indians will never hear about it again. The training institute may turn out to be the bigger story, because the shortage of skilled cybersecurity people is a problem money alone cannot fix quickly.
FAQs
Where is the new RBI data centre in Odisha?
It is at Info Valley-II in Jatni, Khordha district, near Bhubaneswar.
How much did the RBI data centre cost?
The project cost an estimated Rs 169 crore and is spread over 18.55 acres.
Who inaugurated the RBI data centre?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated it on October 25, 2026, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in attendance.
Will this affect my UPI payments?
No. Payments work the same way. The centre is designed to make systems like UPI, NEFT and RTGS more resilient during disruptions.
For official updates, see the Reserve Bank of India website.
Based on reporting by Deccan Chronicle, OdishaTV and Kalinga TV.
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