As businesses mature, Indian cloud providers will see rapid growth driven by demand for localized, predictable, and partner-friendly platforms, explains Manoj Dhanda, Founder & CEO of Utho Cloud during an interview with Aditya Rangroo

1. How do you see the Indian cloud industry evolving in the next 3–5 years?

The cloud industry in India will move on from basic adoption to strategic optimization and ownership in the next 3-5 years. If the earlier phase was all about moving the workloads to the cloud, the next phase is going to be all about cost efficiency, performance, data sovereignty, and reducing lock-in.

As businesses mature, Indian cloud providers will see rapid growth driven by demand for localized, predictable, and partner-friendly platforms. Demand for tighter data residency controls and compliance-ready infrastructures will be driven by BFSI, Healthcare, SaaS, and government-linked organizations. All in all, India will be not just a very large consumer of cloud services but also a producer of cloud innovation, with homegrown providers like Utho emerging as strong contenders to global hyperscalers.

2. What key trends are currently shaping India’s cloud adoption across enterprises and MSMEs?

These three clear trends now drive cloud adoption in India: cost-conscious decision-making, simplification of infrastructure, and demand for localized solutions. Instead of choosing clouds based on brand recognition alone, more businesses question what offers long-term value. Streamlined platforms with human support and guided onboarding are increasingly favored over overtly complex architectures.

Especially for MSMEs, they want cloud solutions to be aligned with Indian realities: billing in INR, flexible cycles of payment, on-ground support, and compliance with local regulations. Probably the most important factor is that decisions to adopt the cloud are no longer confined to the CIOs and CTOs but are increasingly being made with heavy involvement from finance leaders, founders, and operations teams since cloud spending directly impacts profitability.

3. How has the demand for secure, localized cloud infrastructure changed in India recently?

Demand for secure, India-hosted cloud infrastructure has risen dramatically. What was once “good-to-have” has now been prioritized at the board level. Data sovereignty, compliance-readiness, and transparency, all key to infrastructure in-country, have become central to customers’ strategic agendas. Many customers do indeed opt for Utho, as it operates Indian data centers that fall under local legal jurisdiction and can provide more rapid response times in support. For sensitive sectors like BFSI, healthcare, SaaS, and telecom, to name a few, localized cloud becomes a first choice rather than a Plan B. Digital sovereignty and regulatory preparedness are big drivers here.

4. What role do government initiatives like Digital India, Data Protection laws, and Make in India play in shaping the cloud ecosystem?

Government initiatives have radically changed the cloud conversation in India. Digital India hastened nationwide digitization, which led to an organic growth in cloud adoption. Data protection frameworks and data localization requirements are making organizations question where their data is housed and who owns the controls, thereby presenting great opportunities for Indian cloud platforms.

At the same time, Make in India has reconditioned the attitude toward homegrown technology, proving that Indian companies can produce world-class products. All these initiatives have begun to alter the mindset: “If there is a secure, reliable, cost-effective Indian cloud available, why shouldn’t we use it?

5. Where do you believe Indian businesses still lag in cloud adoption compared to global markets?

Although businesses in India are very cost-conscious and pragmatic, there are still a few gaps. Most under invest in a long-term cloud strategy, seeing it as no more than infrastructure but not a strategic enabler of innovation and resilience. Security and observability get added on top, mostly reactively rather than being designed from day one, along with disaster recovery. Also, MSMEs often seriously lack in-house cloud or DevOps expertise and rely badly upon external support. On the bright side, when Indian businesses commit, they are quick and agile in learning and scaling up; hence, guidance, education, and handholding remain core to the approach at Utho.

6. How is the competition within the Indian cloud space shifting as more businesses move away from global giants toward local providers?

The competition is getting healthier and more balanced, with the default mindset of “cloud equals AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud” dissolving as companies increasingly test and validate Indian platforms. Partners and MSPs now expect better margins, quicker support, and flexible engagement models, areas where hyperscalers often fall short. Customers, too, prefer easier dashboards, transparent billing, and India-first support. But the market isn’t just shifting; it is growing. With superior value being created for customers and genuine collaborative relationships being built, the growth in market share is coming the way of Indian cloud providers.

7. In a market dominated by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, what were the initial hurdles in gaining user trust?

The most serious problem was not technological; it was one of perception. A number of businesses were skeptical whether an Indian cloud provider would be able to guarantee the same reliability, performance, and security as global hyperscalers. Other doubts included questions over long-term stability. We responded by focusing on proof, not promises: powering mission-critical workloads, offering transparent SLAs, and providing direct access to skilled engineers. The more customers experienced consistent uptimes, strong performances, and lower costs, the more the trust grew organically and continued to compound.

8. What are the biggest misconceptions Indian companies have about choosing a local cloud provider?

Several myths still exist today: some believe “local means lower quality,” while we see our portfolio of Indian platforms, such as Utho, running enterprise-grade, high-traffic workloads successfully. Some say global clouds are perforce more secured; in fact, security is a question of architecture and execution, not brand. People assume migration will be painful; with the right tools and the right team, transitions can be seamless, and this is something we actively support from end to end. In fact, a strong local cloud provider can offer superior support, better economics, and tighter regulatory alignment.

9. How do you tackle challenges around security, scalability, and performance areas where global brands traditionally dominate?

Our approach has been built on one principle: no shortcuts. Security is embedded at every layer: network isolation, firewalls, access control, monitoring, and automated backups. Utho’s cloud-native architecture, inspired by Kubernetes principles, enables effortless horizontal and vertical scaling. Performance is ensured through Tier 3 data centers, NVMe storage, optimized routing, and consistent low-latency operations. Rather than copying hyperscalers, we focus on what matters most to our customers and execute those areas with precision and contextual relevance.

10. What inspired the creation of Utho as an Indian cloud brand?

Utho was born out of a simple observation: businesses everywhere were paying global prices for cloud without getting the value, accessibility, and support they actually needed. Rising bills, complex dashboards, sluggish support, and vendor lock-in were common pain points. Recognizing India’s rich engineering talent, we asked ourselves, “Why can’t India build a high-performance, affordable, open-source-inspired cloud platform?” Utho was created to solve this, combining global standards with India-centric design and support.

11. Which core values or business principles helped shape the brand from day one?

Utho, right from its inception, has been guided by five guiding principles: customer obsession, simplicity over complexity, transparency, execution-first thinking, and pride in building Indian products with global ambitions. These values drive everything, be it product design, incident handling, customer interactions, feature development, etc.

12. Can you walk us through Utho’s growth journey from idea to execution to scaling?

The journey of Utho encompasses 15 continuous years of evolution. It started way back in 2010 as Microhost.com, a web-hosting company with a focus on reliability and economy. Come 2018, we launched India’s first simple, self-managed cloud platform, and adoption grew rapidly. In 2020, we expanded into enterprise add-ons, VPN, managed Kubernetes, and high-availability setups, becoming a trusted platform for mission-critical workloads.

We introduced NVMe storage, VPC, block and object storage, optimized networking and advanced and hyperscaler-grade products in 2022. In 2023, we rebranded ourselves as Utho, signaling our vision to create an enterprise-ready, open-source-inspired cloud ecosystem. We entered the premium enterprise segment by 2025, offering solutions for high-performance workloads. Today, Utho is emerging as the next hyperscaler of India, with a customer base of over 28,000, built on innovation, execution, and customer obsession.

13. How does Utho ensure superior performance while remaining cost-effective than others?

Utho’s high performance at a lower cost is because we optimize every layer of infrastructure. We use enterprise-grade servers, NVMe storage, powerful Intel/AMD CPUs, and high-speed networking to provide low latency and dedicated CPU performance. Our architecture can support high compute density for reduced overheads; we can provide those savings directly to our customers. Utho deploys in 30 seconds, auto-scales quickly, provides transparent billing, and has no egress charges. It offers hyperscaler performance at as much as 60% less cost. Our Kubernetes Engine reduces costs with a zero-cost control plane and pure open-source integrations.

14. What is your long-term vision for Utho as India’s homegrown cloud ecosystem?

The long-term vision is that Utho becomes the default cloud choice for businesses needing performance, transparency, and India-aligned infrastructure. We are building a comprehensive cloud ecosystem spanning compute, storage, networking, Kubernetes, and managed services, all with a strong developer and MSP community backing it. In time, we want Utho to be the first name in the minds of founders who seek reliable cloud infrastructure.

15. How do you see the role of Indian cloud companies evolving in global tech dynamics over the next decade?

Indian cloud companies are poised to influence global cloud strategy. As the world moves toward data sovereignty, cost efficiency, and open-source architecture, India’s strengths will align with emerging global needs. Indian providers will increasingly power the digital infrastructure for emerging markets, with both predictable pricing and strong performance. Over the next decade, Indian clouds will go from challengers to global trendsetters and reshape the standards for sovereign cloud, AI-ready infrastructure, and developer-centric platforms.