India’s rapid push to become a global hub for artificial intelligence is fueling an unprecedented expansion of data centers across the country, but the infrastructure boom is placing growing strain on water resources and nearby communities, Nikkei Asia reports.
One such community is Tusiana, a village on the outskirts of India’s capital in Uttar Pradesh, located next to one of the country’s largest new AI data center clusters. The Yotta Data Centre, promoted as a hyperscale campus capable of handling massive volumes of data, sits close to the village, where residents say groundwater levels have been falling at an alarming pace.
When fully operational, the six-building Yotta complex is expected to consume up to 160 megawatts of power for servers alone. According to World Economic Forum estimates cited by Nikkei Asia, a single one-megawatt data center can use as much as 25.5 million liters of water annually for cooling, highlighting the scale of potential water demand from such facilities.
The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, which allocated land for the project as part of a designated data center corridor, says it supplies the facility with 50 kiloliters per day of treated water. Yotta has stated that it operates a sewage treatment plant capable of supplying an additional 50 kiloliters daily and does not draw groundwater or municipal drinking water.
However, a migrant worker at the site told Nikkei Asia that at least 10 borewells exist within the campus and that groundwater is being used. Yotta did not respond to Nikkei Asia’s request for clarification on the borewells before publication.
For Tusiana’s residents, the data center has been a source of unease since operations began in 2022. Harbir Singh, a 70-year-old lifelong resident, said the village’s water table has dropped sharply in recent years. He told Nikkei Asia that groundwater was once accessible at around 30 meters, but borewells now must be drilled as deep as 180 meters, with some parts of the village exceeding 250 meters.
The situation in Tusiana reflects a wider national pattern. Planet Tracker, a non-profit think tank, has found that many of India’s nearly 250 data centers are located in areas already classified as severely water-scarce, where groundwater levels have been declining for years. Despite this, state governments such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu continue to market themselves aggressively as destinations for AI and data center investment, even as they issue recurring drought warnings.
Although Tusiana is officially connected to a government piped water network, villagers say the supply is often unsafe for drinking, forcing households to rely on groundwater or purchase filtered water. Singh warned that growing industrial development would only increase demand, adding that villagers fear their needs are being overlooked.
Environmental researchers say these concerns are justified. Shaolei Ren, an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside, told Nikkei Asia that hyperscale data centers typically rely on cooling systems that require large volumes of water year-round or during peak summer periods. In water-stressed regions, he said, this places data centers in direct competition with local communities for scarce resources.
India’s data center expansion is driven by strong fundamentals. Deloitte estimates that the country generates nearly 20% of the world’s data but accounts for only about 3% of global data center capacity. Macquarie Equity Research projects that India’s capacity could double and potentially increase fivefold by 2030, from about 1.4 gigawatts currently operational to several gigawatts under construction and planning.
Global technology firms and Indian conglomerates are investing heavily to position India as a center for cloud computing, AI training and data storage. Yet Nikkei Asia notes that the environmental and social costs borne by host communities often receive far less attention.
Local residents say economic benefits rarely reach them. Singh said most jobs created by the nearby data center are limited to low-skilled roles such as housekeeping or security, offering little long-term opportunity for villagers.
Ren said such outcomes are common near large data center developments, noting that these facilities generate relatively few permanent jobs when compared to the land, power and water they consume. As India accelerates its AI ambitions, the experience of villages like Tusiana highlights the growing tension between digital growth and basic resource security.
