India’s listed fintech companies are paying sharply more to run their platforms as artificial intelligence (AI) adoption strains global data centre capacity, with Paytm and Groww reporting tech-related cost jumps of close to 60% or more in the September quarter.
The rise shows up in second-quarter FY27 filings and investor presentations. Executives at PhonePe, Upstox and Zerodha told Moneycontrol on 3 November 2026 that the pressure on compute, storage and memory costs is likely to continue for the next six to twelve months.
How Much Tech Costs Have Risen
- Paytm: software, cloud and data centre expenses rose 59% year on year to ₹211 crore, from ₹133 crore, in the quarter in which it reported a ₹225 crore profit.
- Groww: cost to serve, which includes internet and data centre spending, climbed 66% to ₹206 crore from ₹124 crore. Groww put its AI costs for the quarter at ₹13 crore.
- Upstox: co-founder Shrini Viswanath said overall data processing costs are running 25-30% higher than a year ago.
Paytm said in its investor presentation that the increase reflected higher AI usage and the consolidation of its technology platforms, and warned of quarterly swings because of how its cloud contracts are structured. Groww linked its higher costs to more trading days, one-time client reimbursements for abnormal trades and compute inflation driven by AI.
Why Compute Is Getting Costlier
PhonePe co-founder and chief product and technology officer Rahul Chari said compute, storage and memory prices are all rising because hyperscalers are building out large GPU capacity for AI training, while fabrication costs are high and supply is tight. The pressure started with memory prices and has since spread to storage and general computing.
The impact is gradual because only new hardware purchases and replacements are hit immediately. A large brokerage said long-term contracts with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud have kept its costs in check for now, but they could rise when those contracts are renewed, possibly in about two years.
Lean Engineering as a Cost Shield
Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh said laptop and server prices have gone up, but large cloud providers have so far resisted the surge, and most of Zerodha’s compute runs on AWS. He cautioned that firms without lean, well-engineered technology stacks could see much bigger bills when they deploy AI, because scaling bloated systems needs substantial hardware.
Firms are responding with longer hardware lifecycles, right-sizing of workloads, tiered storage and locking in capacity earlier, Viswanath said. The cost debate comes as listed fintechs, including PB Fintech and MobiKwik, use their earnings calls to show that AI spending is improving sales, lending risk and operations, as The Economic Times reported. For companies heading toward listing, it also adds a new line to watch in the fintech IPO pipeline.
Key Takeaways
- Paytm’s cloud and data centre costs rose 59% and Groww’s cost to serve rose 66% in Q2 FY27.
- Executives expect compute cost inflation to last another six to twelve months.
- Long-term cloud contracts and lean engineering are cushioning some firms for now.
Source: Moneycontrol, 3 November 2026.
