Responsible growth

India must ensure data centres are sustainable

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India last year witnessed a surge in investment by global technology giants. Amazon committed more than $35 billion to India through 2030 across artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digitisation, exports, and job creation. Microsoft has announced $17.5 billion over four years for Cloud, AI infrastructure, and skilling, its largest investment in Asia, while Google is investing $15 billion to build in Visakhapatnam its biggest AI and data-centre hub outside the United States. Meta, meanwhile, has partnered with Reliance to build enterprise AI platforms and is exploring a 500-megawatt data centre in Andhra Pradesh. A large digital consumer base, low-cost data, and robust digital public infrastructure are driving such investments. Regulatory measures such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act have strengthened perceptions of policy stability.