Protests in Visakhapatnam, Thane against mega data centres over water

India’s ambition to become an artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse is beginning to face the kind of local resistance that has slowed data centre projects in parts of Europe and North America. In Thane and Visakhapatnam, residents have launched what are among the country’s first.

Thane residents have questioned the government and proposed Amazon AI data facility on questions of environmental transparency, depleting of essential resources, and long-term impact on residents' lives. (HT Photo/Praful Gangurde)The protests come as the Centre encourages investment in digital infrastructure.

What Happened

At the AI Impact Summit in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged global technology companies to let their data “reside in India”, pitching the country as a hub for AI infrastructure. Several states have also introduced policies and incentives to attract investment.

• Data centres were granted infrastructure status in 2022, while this year’s Union Budget announced a tax holiday until 2047 for eligible foreign cloud service providers.

• Deputy city engineer Dhole said the proposed Amazon facility would receive 12 million litres a day (MLD) of treated sewage water.

• Nearly 800 km away, a similar campaign is taking shape in Visakhapatnam, where several citizen groups are opposing a proposed Google-Adani hyperscale AI data centre complex.

Key Details

Half of Thane is living on tanker water. Residents say they are not opposed to technology or AI, but to building one of the country’s biggest data centres in a densely populated residential area without fully addressing its long-term impact on the.

• Vanguru also questioned whether the projects justified the public resources they would consume, saying government environmental clearances indicated that the three sites together would create about 1,700 permanent jobs.

• GV Pallam Raju, superintending engineer for water supply at the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation, said the demand made by the data centres so far amounted to less than 1% of the current supply.

• India’s installed data centre capacity has nearly tripled, from about 520 MW in 2020 to almost 1.5 GW by mid-2025, and is projected to reach 4.5-6.5 GW by 2030.

Why It Matters

In Thane, the data centre facing protests is Amazon’s hyperscale facility, spread across about 53-58 acres at Balkum and Majiwada. The campaign began after residents learnt that data centres are classified as essential services, raising concerns that they could receive priority access.

• The sector attracted around USD 95 billion in committed investments between 2019 and 2025.

• A more aggressive forecast by Wood Mackenzie has estimated capacity of 12 GW by 2030, largely because of AI-related demand and hyperscale expansion.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• The report noted that data centres already account for around 1.5% of global electricity consumption, with demand expected to rise sharply as AI expands.

• Continued reporting by Hindustan Times as more details emerge