INDIA'S DRY RUN

India is poised to be a global hub of data centres—back-end facilities that house servers and hardware needed to run online activities.

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These require large volumes of water to keep the computational infrastructure cool. As companies integrate artificial intelligence into their operations, the demand for data centres is growing to meet the need for higher computational power. Since companies are setting up such facilities in water-scarce areas, the country's digital boom could make its water shortage more acute.

ROHINI KRISHNAMURTHY reports from NOIDA and BENGALURU

TWO STARKLY different worlds converge in Tusiana, a small village of 2,000 people in Uttar Pradesh. Near its entry road, a sprawling 8-hectare complex looms, with the perimeter ringed with high walls and barbed wires. Trees and suvs line the structure’s boundary wall along the wide, freshly paved road, creating a veneer of prosperity. Drive a kilometre further and the illusion dissolves. The concrete road disappears, the air turns foul, and sewage-choked streets with open drains become a common sight—an everyday reality in a village still deprived of basic infrastructure.

The sprawling complex is a data centre park owned and operated by Yotta Data Services Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based company belonging to the real estate major Hiranandani Group. Inaugurated in 2022, the facility in Greater Noida city, Gautam Buddha Nagar district, is only partially operational, with one of its six data centres open. While Yotta Data Services touts it as “North India’s gateway to the digital world”, Tusiana residents express a deep anxiety over the facility’s impact on the future of water availability in the area. “Two decades ago, we used to get water at a depth of 6-9 m. Now, we must dig 25 m,” says Satish Chand, a labourer from Tusiana.