Data centre growth faces opposition in India and South Africa
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Vaughan O’Grady
Category: Energy & Sustainability
06 August 2026
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At a time when data centre development seems to promise jobs, investment and technological advances for many developing nations, many governments and companies are also having to deal with the often adverse public perceptions of such development on water and power.
For example in Visakhapatnam in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh Google’s planned US$15 billion Indian data centre hub, its biggest-ever India investment, is facing several legal challenges and opposition from activists and campaigners. Much of the opposition focuses on the project’s impact on water supplies and its proximity to a wildlife sanctuary, which might be affected by noise from construction and, presumably, operations.
As Reuters reports, the city is said to receive 410 million litres of water a day from its reservoirs and rivers, against a requirement of 480 million litres. Rationing of water supplies is already not unusual. However, data centre buildouts use huge quantities of water to cool servers.
The state has insisted that no water for rural or residential purposes will be used for the upcoming data centres, and that the water reservoir nearby will also not be used. It also denies allegations that the project was fast-tracked without weighing risks to water supplies and wildlife. It says the sanctuary is farther away than the law requires and Google says it will be implementing sound-dampening measures.
Indian conglomerate the Adani Group will build the project which could, it is claimed, create up to 188,000 jobs, an attractive notion for any state. Nevertheless, protests and legal challenges, including three cases filed at India’s environmental court by local advocacy group the Human Rights Forum demanding a halt, are likely to continue.
In South Africa meanwhile it’s been only a week since Cape Town approved the zoning application for data centre company Equinix’s proposed data centre campus, subject to further regulatory steps. The project, like the one in India, faces opposition over its potential impact on electricity demand and water re
According to calculations presented to the planning tribunal, Equinix’s two data centres alone would consume electricity comparable to that used by roughly 130,000 households. It’s also been argued that the project’s planned 174 MW capacity would imply theoretical annual water use of roughly 4.4 billion litres, though Equinix says that its facilities will use a dry air-cooling system that does not require significant water consumption to cool server rooms.
This is an important issue in Cape Town, which narrowly avoided running out of water during the city’s 2018 water crisis. Four major new data centres are planned for the city. One estimate suggest that their combined projected electricity demand could equal about 34% of Cape Town’s current peak power demand.
Of course investment and job creation have played a significant part in government enthusiasm for data centres. South Africa expects more than about US$2.7 billion in digital infrastructure investment over the next three years.
And, as we have reported, there’s clearly demand from both users and investors. Back in India, Bharti Airtel recently said it plans to increase its data centre capacity to 1 gigawatt from 120-130 megawatt over the next few years. Its data centre subsidiary Nxtra has already raised a US$1 billion funding round from external investors to support the expansion, which is said to be driven by hyperscaler demand and ongoing land acquisitions in Mumbai.
While opposition to uncontrolled expansion of data centres is growing in both the developed and developing worlds, and even some governments are having second thoughts, questions of limited water and power supply are clearly more urgent in areas like Africa, Latin America and India. It’s hard to know how or whether such concerns can be resolved.
