Nepalese telecommunications company Ncell announced on Tuesday that it has become the first—and currently only—company to be officially listed by the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) as a data centre and cloud service provider in Nepal.
This certification follows a directive from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) in January 2025, which was aimed at establishing a legal framework for the regulation of data centres and cloud services in Nepal. According to the Data Centre and Cloud Services (Operation and Management) Directives 2025, all existing data centre and cloud service providers are required to obtain separate certifications from the DoIT before the end of June 2025.
Ncell, which operates a Tier III integrated data centre in Nakkhu, Lalitpur, and two disaster recovery data centres in Pokhara and Hetauda, underwent an extensive inspection of its infrastructure to receive the certification. The inspection included submitting documentation such as fire safety protocols, security and privacy policies, business continuity plans, data centre tier classifications, and IP pool details, ensuring the company meets the required operational standards and security protocols for providing data centre and cloud services.
Dion Asencio, Ncell’s Chief Business Officer, stated that the certification is particularly important given the growing demand for data centres and cloud services in Nepal. He noted that Ncell is the first and only company to have received this certification under the new directive.
Other operators in Nepal’s data centre market include Subisu, Cloud Himalaya, and DataHub. In January 2025, Nepal Telecom signed a letter of intent with Huawei to build a data centre and a disaster recovery centre, a deal valued at NPR 484 million ($3.5 million). Additionally, India’s Yotta Data Services is constructing a data centre near Kathmandu under a deal signed in April 2024 with BLC.
