Zoho launches Designed-in-India server Nathu La: Read how engineering freshers in Nagpur built it, to be deployed in its data centres to achieve technological sovereignty

In a significant development in hardware innovation in the country, Zoho Corporation has officially unveiled Nathu La, an indigenously designed server platform. Named after the historic Nathu La pass connecting India and China, this launch represents a bold stride by the global technology company towards achieving end-to-end control over its technology stack, from hardware to software, while promoting technological self-reliance. Zoho Corporation is the parent of the popular Zoho suite of business applications and ManageEngine.

The Nathu La server, developed over several years by a dedicated team of engineers in Nagpur, is built around Intel Xeon 6 processors and uses open, modular design principles. Zoho has emphasised that every bit of intellectual property associated with the server is owned in India, making it one of the rare instances where a technology firm has created a homegrown server platform with complete sovereignty. This initiative aligns with the company’s long-term vision of building sovereign technology that reduces dependency on foreign hardware solutions and optimises performance for its specific workloads, particularly in artificial intelligence inference and cloud applications.

According to Zoho, the Nathu La server delivers performance equivalent to existing solutions but with notably improved efficiency. It reduces total cost of ownership by 20-30 per cent and power consumption by 12-18 per cent, which in turn lowers inference costs significantly. These improvements are expected to benefit Zoho’s vast customer base by enabling faster, more cost-effective, and energy-efficient services.

The server incorporates custom power delivery systems, in-house firmware, advanced security architecture, and innovations in thermal management, with over five patents filed in these areas.⁠ The company has been testing the Nathu La server for nearly a year and has already begun limited production deployments.

Zoho plans to deploy Nathu La servers extensively within its own infrastructure. The company is currently targeting close to 1,000 servers in production and pre-production environments, with expectations to scale up to around 2,000 by the end of the year. By hosting its applications on this platform, Zoho aims to optimise the entire software-hardware integration for better efficiency, performance, and sustainability.

Owning the hardware stack will allow Zoho to optimise performance for its applications. Moreover, the company will reduce dependence on foreign server vendors such as Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo. This move not only strengthens Zoho’s data centre operations globally but also positions it as a pioneer among Indian technology companies venturing deeply into hardware design.⁠

Reportedly, the company is not planning to commercialise the Nathu La server at present. The server will be deployed in its own data centres to run its own applications. “We launched a server platform primarily for internal use. We are dogfooding it as we speak. Zoho runs on Zoho,” said Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of AI Research at Zoho Corp.

Mangesh Sadafale, Head of Hardware Development at Zoho, said that the company currently has “a few hundred” Nathu La servers deployed against a fleet of more than 10,000 servers spread across over 16 data centres globally.

Shailesh Davey, CEO of Zoho Corporation, said that the launch is a tangible step towards owning the technology stack end to end, directly benefiting customers worldwide. The development process involved close collaboration with Intel, which provided enablement capabilities and technical expertise, however, the core design and ownership remain firmly rooted in India.  

The server was developed by freshers from engineering graduates in company’s Nagpur centre, far from traditional hardware hubs like Bengaluru and Chennai. As there was no experienced manpower, Zoho created SETU (Student Engagement for Transformative Upskilling), a programme that works with engineering students from their fifth semester onwards. Over 300 students went through the initiative, and many later joined Zoho.

“Nathu La is completely designed in Nagpur and designed by people who joined Zoho as freshers,” Mangesh Sadafale said.

While the server has been designed in India, the company is still dependent on Intel for processors and global semiconductor giants for memory. The company said that it is working towards greater technological self-reliance.

Mangesh Sadafale added that the company took inspiration from Intel’s convention of naming platforms after geographical locations and passes.

Written by OpIndia Staff
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