As the National Stock Exchange (NSE) prepares for one of India’s most anticipated public offerings, its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) offers a glimpse into a technology infrastructure that rivals some of the country’s largest digital enterprises.
The exchange, which plans to launch an offer for sale of up to 148.9 million equity shares, has built a vast digital backbone comprising 7 data centres, more than 14,000 servers and nearly 60 petabytes of storage capacity. The infrastructure forms the foundation of the country’s largest stock exchange and supports trading activity across more than 1,400 cities and towns.
According to the DRHP, the exchange’s technology network includes over 2,500 racks and power backup capacity exceeding 14 MW. The platform connects more than 200,000 trading terminals and processes an average of 12 to 14 billion messages every day. On March 24, 2026, the exchange handled a record 21.89 billion order messages in a single day while executing 201 million trades.
The scale of operations shows how capital markets have evolved into technology intensive businesses. NSE’s systems are capable of processing around five million messages per second with microsecond response times across cash, derivatives and currency segments. The exchange has also enhanced its infrastructure to provide order acknowledgement within nanoseconds.
Technology continues to be a major area of investment for the exchange. NSE spent Rs 1,314.6 crore on technology-related operating expenses in FY26, up sharply from Rs 786.2 crore in FY24. Its IT capital expenditure stood at Rs 422 crore in FY26, accounting for nearly 72 per cent of the company’s total capital spending.
To ensure uninterrupted operations, NSE maintains a primary data centre supported by a fully mirrored disaster recovery site and a near data centre that replicates data in real time. The exchange conducts live operations from the disaster recovery facility twice every year.
The DRHP also highlights the growing importance of cybersecurity and resilience. Designated as a Critical Information Infrastructure entity, NSE reported zero data breach incidents during FY24, FY25 and FY26.
While investors may focus on the exchange’s market leadership and financial performance, the DRHP shows that behind every trade lies a technology infrastructure operating at enormous scale, making NSE as much a technology company as a financial marketplace.
