\u201cWe have learned that America does not want the problems of datacentres and so now Google is bringing them here,\u201d said Tarluvada\u2019s village head, BRB Naidu, who admitted he was torn about whether the datacentre would bring prosperity or ruin to their community. \u201cMany in the village are very worried. But the government has refused to answer our questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
BRB Naidu, Tarluvada village head. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Pointing up to the nearby hillside \u2013 where bulldozers recently stripped the land bare of trees to ready it for Google\u2019s mega AI campus \u2013 Naidu adds: \u201cThe work just continues every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state government, which is allied with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi\u2019s 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\u2019s largest and most politically powerful conglomerates with a reputation for getting approvals through quickly, to build the project.<\/p>\n
Publicly it was announced<\/a> as a 1GW project \u2013 already a larger energy requirement than most AI datacentres. In its response to the Guardian, Google referred to it only as an unspecific \u201cgigawatt scale AI hub\u201d, that was \u201ccomparable to other projects\u201d.<\/p>\n But state environmental clearances reveal that permission has been granted for it to be more than double that size \u2013 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.<\/p>\n Acres of forests being cleared for Google\u2019s AI datacentre around Tarluvada. Photograph: Hannah Ellis-Petersen\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Activists fear that meeting the datacentre\u2019s 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 \u201cnew, clean energy\u201d to power its AI hub, currently 75% of the country\u2019s electricity grid is run on coal.<\/p>\n The state government argues AI datacentres will be essential to India\u2019s growth and long-term digital competitiveness. According to the government of India\u2019s Economic Survey<\/a> 2025\u201326, India generated nearly 20% of the world\u2019s data but hosts only about 3% of global datacentres.<\/p>\n But locals and activists say that building one of the world\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Despite the AI datacentre\u2019s expansive footprint, the state government issued environmental clearances to Google in just nine days, with no public consultation.<\/p>\n A map situating Tarluvada on the eastern coast of India, near the Bay of Bengal.<\/a><\/p>\n Three petitions challenging the state\u2019s quick approval of the project have now been filed to India\u2019s National Green Tribunal (NGT), the country\u2019s top environmental court. The petitions allege that government\u2019s assessment of the risks to the environment and water supplies were \u201cgrossly inadequate, scientifically unrealistic, and misleading\u201d. A public litigation has also been filed in the Andhra Pradesh high court.<\/p>\n \u201cThis 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,\u201d said VS Krishna, an activist with Human Rights Forum, the organisation which filed the NGT cases.<\/p>\n Krishna alleged that their campaign to protest against the datacentre had been met with a deliberate silencing<\/a>, including videos and social media pages being taken down. The government did not respond to this allegation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just have to look at the protests happening across the world to understand how environmentally catastrophic this will be,\u201d Krishna added.<\/p>\n In Tarluvada, temperatures regularly soar to about 45C during the summer and there are concerns the datacentres \u2013 documented emitters of heat<\/a> \u2013 could make this even worse. The mass deforestation required for the project \u2013 more than 100 acres, could drive up temperatures even more. In response to the Guardian, Google said the project would have \u201cno expected impact\u201d on the local community.<\/p>\n
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