The rise of data centres needs to be eco-friendly

Mega outlays for data hubs in India reflect a projected boom led by digital demand and AI usage. Given the energy they’ll guzzle, we must find ways to keep their proliferation clean

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India generates about 20% of the world’s digital data but is home to only 3% of its data-centre capacity. At the same time, India’s policy aim is to have all sensitive data generated on Indian entities stored within the country—exclusively or not is a different debate. Just to store what we currently generate, our local capacity would need to multiply quickly. Apart from ever greater aspects of our existence going digital, we also have the voracious data appetite of artificial intelligence (AI) to contend with. In all, we can expect demand for facilities that store and process data to go up exponentially. It is in this context that US-based Google raised its 2025 capex outlay to $85 billion, as reported, and plans to invest $15 billion over five years in building a data hub at Visakhapatnam. Indian software major TCS has a data centre plan of its own, as do other local players like Reliance, Adani, Bharti Airtel and L&T. With so much capacity about to be added, India must start worrying about keeping these units supplied with the electricity