India’s digital thirst

November 5, 2025

Two contrasting realities collide in Tusiana, a small village in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. At the entrance stands a gleaming 20-acre complex surrounded by high walls, barbed wire and police barricades the Yotta Data Centre Park. Inside, SUVs glide past manicured trees and a humming power sub-station.

But a short drive ahead, the illusion fades. Open drains, broken roads and the stench of sewage mark the everyday life of Tusiana’s 2,000 residents, who still wait for basic infrastructure. The village shot to prominence in 2022 when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and then Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar inaugurated the Yotta facility. The project, backed by a Rs 39,000- crore MoU, promised six data centres to be built over seven years.

Only one is operational so far, yet the scale of its presence already dominates local life. While Yotta calls it “North India’s gateway to the digital world,” villagers say it has delivered little benefit. “When construction is complete, they won’t need labourers like us,” says Satish Chand, who once worked at the site. Others fear for their future access to water. “Our main source is groundwater,” says shopkeeper Rahul Bhatti.

“Once the whole facility runs, it will draw heavily from aquifers and leave less for us.” India’s data centre boom reflects its growing dependence on digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence. These facilities are crucial for storing and processing information but consume massive amounts of water to cool servers. Researchers warn that the surge in data centres could worsen water stress, particularly in areas already facing shortages.

A McKinsey analysis projects that by 2030, nearly 70% of new data centre capacity will cater to AI-heavy workloads. Generative AI, like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, is especially waterintensive due to powerful chips that require constant cooling. Studies show that training large AI models can consume millions of litres of water. In Tusiana, residents have seen deep borewells being drilled for the facility. Researchers estimate that even a small 1 MW data centre uses about 26 million litres of water annually. With Yotta’s current 30 MW capacity, the site could consume roughly 780 million litres a year — equal to the daily needs of about 1,600 urban residents. Once all six centres become operational, usage could reach 3.3 billion litres annually, or more than 9 million litres a day — comparable to a town of nearly 70,000 people.