RBI opens Rs 169 crore data centre, cyber institute near Bhubaneswar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, 25 October 2026, inaugurated a new data centre and a cybersecurity training institute built by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at Info Valley-II in Jatni, near Bhubaneswar in Odisha. The facility was built at a cost of about Rs 169 crore to Rs 170 crore, according to reports of the event, and stands on 18.55 acres. Officials said it will carry core RBI workloads, including payment and settlement operations, and make India's digital financial infrastructure more resilient.

India's money now moves mostly through digital rails that the RBI either runs or oversees. Large-value transfers between banks settle through real-time gross settlement (RTGS), retail transfers through NEFT, and everyday phone payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). A data centre is the building that houses the computers, storage and network equipment on which such systems run. If the hardware in one place fails, through a power cut, a flood, an earthquake or a cyber attack, a second, distant site can keep services going. Reports on the new centre describe it as adding exactly this kind of backup for core payment systems.

The choice of site reflects that logic. Officials said Jatni was picked because it is geologically stable and far from seismic zones and sensitive borders. For a central bank, the main risk is not that a payment takes a few seconds longer, but that a single disaster could stop settlements across the country. One technology publication noted that the facility does not by itself make transactions faster or end outages; its value lies in resilience, the ability to recover quickly when something goes wrong.

The cybersecurity institute addresses a different gap: people. Protecting payment systems needs specialists who understand both banking and security. A dedicated campus for training and research in cybersecurity and enterprise computing gives the central bank its own platform to build these skills across the financial sector, officials said, rather than relying only on outside courses.

For Odisha, the project brings a high-security national installation to the Bhubaneswar IT corridor. Speaking at the event, the Prime Minister linked it to the government's aim of spreading growth beyond big cities by creating opportunities in smaller towns and villages.

Short-term: Customers will not notice any change in how they pay. The work happens behind the scenes, as the RBI moves systems and workloads into the new site and begins training programmes at the institute.

Long-term: A second, geographically separate site lowers the chance that one local disaster or attack can halt national payment systems, which supports confidence in digital banking. The institute can add to the pool of trained cybersecurity staff in banks and financial firms, and to Bhubaneswar's standing as a technology location.

Who is affected: Banks and payment companies that depend on RBI-run systems, the RBI's own technology staff, students and professionals in cybersecurity, and Odisha's IT and services economy.

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