Google’s largest data centre outside the United States has become a lightning rod for protest. Excavators are clearing forest and farmland on India’s southeast coast for the $15 billion facility at Visakhapatnam, as campaign posters wrap handcuffs around the Google logo and warn that people “cannot drink data.”
Key Highlights
- Google’s $15bn, 600-acre AI data centre at Tarluvada is its largest outside the US
- Vizag’s strategic pull: a submarine-cable landing point linking India to Singapore
- The city already runs a water deficit (410m vs 480m litres/day), forcing rationing
- Google pledges air cooling and no residential/reservoir water; its own study flagged watershed pressure
- The state high court is hearing activist challenges; campaigners demand an independent water audit
For India, the 600-acre site at Tarluvada village, larger than 340 football pitches, is strategically ideal. Vizag is a landing point for submarine internet cables linking the country to Singapore, and New Delhi champions the project as a cornerstone of its technological ambitions.
Residents see a steeper price. Many fear the mega-facility, one of several huge tech sites rising in Vizag, will strain scarce water and power, scar the environment and deliver too few local jobs in return.
The water maths is stark. Vizag already receives about 410 million litres a day against a requirement of 480 million, forcing frequent rationing across a city of 2.5 million. Campaigners like Green Visakha argue development must not come at residents’ expense.
Google insists its gigawatt-scale AI facility will rely on air cooling, drawing no residential or reservoir water, and pledges not to divert power from communities. Yet its own assessment reportedly flagged pressure on the local watershed.
The dispute has reached the courts. The state high court has asked the government to answer allegations by activist group Jal Biradari that the project threatens a nearby reservoir, while a former official has demanded an independent water audit.
Ultimately, Vizag crystallises a global dilemma: how to host the AI boom’s thirsty infrastructure without draining the communities it is built beside.
