When the government officials arrived in Tarluvada last year, they came with abundant promises.

Google, one of the world’s richest and most powerful tech companies, would soon be bringing a “golden opportunity” to this tiny village in south India: a $15bn AI datacentre.

The project, being built in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, is set to be Google’s largest “hyperscale” AI datacentre outside the US and would, officials said, make the village of Tarluvada into a world-famous tech hub. Jobs, usually scarce in this impoverished community, would become bountiful, real estate prices would soar and compensation for any land would be generous.

A traditional house in Tarluvada. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen/The Guardian

Few in the village – which sits on a dusty unpaved road and is surrounded by farms and forest – had even heard of AI or knew what a datacentre was. Yet it did not take long for local jubilation over Google’s arrival to turn to suspicion.

Just as protests have erupted globally over AI datacentres – from California and Texas to Scotland and Australia – communities in Andhra Pradesh, too have been gathering in opposition to the project, fearing that the people will end up bearing a crippling environmental and economic cost.

“We have learned that America does not want the problems of datacentres and so now Google is bringing them here,” said Tarluvada’s village head, BRB Naidu, who admitted he was torn about whether the datacentre would bring prosperity or ruin to their community. “Many in the village are very worried. But the government has refused to answer our questions.”

BRB Naidu, Tarluvada village head. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen/The Guardian

Pointing up to the nearby hillside – where bulldozers recently stripped the land bare of trees to ready it for Google’s mega AI campus – Naidu adds: “The work just continues every day.”

The state government, which is allied with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s party, have been accused of trying to obfuscate the true scale of the vast AI hub being built in Andhra Pradesh, to push the project through at lightening speed and avoid more stringent environmental scrutiny. Google has partnered with the Adani Group, one of India’s largest and most politically powerful conglomerates with a reputation for getting approvals through quickly, to build the project.

Publicly it was announced as a 1GW project – already a larger energy requirement than most AI datacentres. In its response to the Guardian, Google referred to it only as an unspecific “gigawatt scale AI hub”, that was “comparable to other projects”.

But state environmental clearances reveal that permission has been granted for it to be more than double that size – 2.51GW; the power equivalent of two large nuclear reactors at full output. Over a year, it amounts to upwards of 30% of the current energy consumption of the whole of Andhra Pradesh, a state home to more than 55 million people.

Acres of forests being cleared for Google’s AI datacentre around Tarluvada. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen/The Guardian

Activists fear that meeting the datacentre’s vast energy demands will lead to seismic environmental consequences for the region, including driving up fossil fuel emissions. While Google has pledged to help generate “new, clean energy” to power its AI hub, currently 75% of the country’s electricity grid is run on coal.

The state government argues AI datacentres will be essential to India’s growth and long-term digital competitiveness. According to the government of India’s Economic Survey 2025–26, India generated nearly 20% of the world’s data but hosts only about 3% of global datacentres.

But locals and activists say that building one of the world’s largest AI datacentres in a region of India already struggling with issues over extreme heat, water, land, forests, power shortages and environmental regulation comes at a heavy cost.

Google’s project will in fact encompass three separate datacentres around the state capital of Vizakhapatnam. One other site nearby to Taluvada is a few metres from reserve forest, a drinking water reservoir and a wildlife sanctuary home to endangered species such as leopards.

Despite the AI datacentre’s expansive footprint, the state government issued environmental clearances to Google in just nine days, with no public consultation.

A map situating Tarluvada on the eastern coast of India, near the Bay of Bengal.

Three petitions challenging the state’s quick approval of the project have now been filed to India’s National Green Tribunal (NGT), the country’s top environmental court. The petitions allege that government’s assessment of the risks to the environment and water supplies were “grossly inadequate, scientifically unrealistic, and misleading”. A public litigation has also been filed in the Andhra Pradesh high court.

“This datacentre will be unprecedented in scale but there was no public hearing and no substantial evaluation of the ecological damage or the economic cost for local communities,” said VS Krishna, an activist with Human Rights Forum, the organisation which filed the NGT cases.

Krishna alleged that their campaign to protest against the datacentre had been met with a deliberate silencing, including videos and social media pages being taken down. The government did not respond to this allegation.

“We just have to look at the protests happening across the world to understand how environmentally catastrophic this will be,” Krishna added.

In Tarluvada, temperatures regularly soar to about 45C during the summer and there are concerns the datacentres – documented emitters of heat – could make this even worse. The mass deforestation required for the project – more than 100 acres, could drive up temperatures even more. In response to the Guardian, Google said the project would have “no expected impact” on the local community.

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P Venkat Rao, a Dalit farmer, pumps water in the village. He was forced to give up his land for the Google datacentre and now has no livelihood. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen/The Guardian

The strain on water supplies in this already water-stressed area has also been a cause of concern. In similarly water-stressed cities in the US, datacentres have been accused of exacerbating drought while polluting the water supply. Google said this project would use air-cooling instead of water, and would therefore have no impact on local drinking water supplies.

Venkat Surynarayana, 40, a farmer in Tarluvada, said that when officials had initially come to measure land for the datacentre “they never mentioned anything about risks of pollution or water or heat, they didn’t even tell us what the project was.

“We are sick with worry since we learned about the problems a datacentre can bring. This area can not afford to be any hotter. What if this makes our land dry and worthless? What will happen to my crops and my livelihood?”

Surynarayana claimed attempts to get answers from the local administration had been met with police threats and protesters such as himself had been routinely detained. “When we raised our voices, they ignore us and then they shut us down,” he said. “But if this is not stopped, it could be the end of Tarluvada.”

For the state government of Andhra Pradesh, the deal struck with Google to build this vast datacentre on its turf is a source of enormous pride, part of a wider policy to make the state into India’s most advanced and affluent tech hub. “Artificial intelligence is becoming foundational infrastructure for the global economy,” said Sribharat Mathukumilli, a local MP with the ruling state government, who rejected the environmental concerns.

The subsidies and incentives they offered to Google, from decades-long tax breaks and discounted land to access to cheap electricity and water, are estimated to amount to 220bn rupees ($2.2bn) over 20 years.

Applaraju, one of the villagers who lost his land for grazing his cows to the Google’s AI datacentre being built in Tarluvada. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen/The Guardian

“Our objective is not simply to host a datacentre, but to create an AI and digital ecosystem,” said Mathukumilli. Late last year, the state granted permission for another 1GW AI datacentre, to be built by Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.

Google insisted the design choices of its AI datacentre have been tailored to local conditions and that it had “engaged deeply” with local communities, claiming it would generate thousands of jobs around Vizakhapatnam.

But swathes of villagers in Tarluvada allege they were forced to give up land for the project against their will, and say they have not been given all they were promised in return.

“No one will tell us the truth about this project,” said T Applaraju, 40, who was one of the 520 local families in Tarluvada who recently had land taken back that the government had allocated to him 20 years ago. He claims he was given no notice that his land was to be taken until April this year, when security guards working for the Adani Group erected fences and blocked locals from entering the plots they had farmed for years.

“They took land that we thought belonged to us, it’s a big shock,” he said. “Why are Google building this here and not in America?”

The state government claims no lands were forcibly taken and that it gave “generous compensation” to those who were eligible. The Adani group says that all necessary legal approvals were given. But many of the 47 farmers from the impoverished Dalit community who were compensated for their land are also unhappy.

One farmer, P Venkat Rao, alleged he was pressured by the government into giving up his only acre of land against his will. He received $40,000 in compensation, but said the government’s promise to give them a replacement piece of land and one job per family had not materialised. Without land to farm, Rao described the compensation as “worthless”.

“I am a farmer, without my land I am nothing,” he added. “They have taken my livelihood and broken their promises.”