Visakhapatnam lies alongside a cyclone-prone and climate-sensitive shoreline. The Madhurawada hills and adjoining lowlands already bear the scars of rampant actual property growth that has stripped tree cowl and disrupted pure drainage methods. Establishing a high-energy, heat-intensive advanced of this magnitude in such a terrain is ecologically reckless, the HRF cautioned.
Google and Adani have been granted approval to determine a one-gigawatt (GW) knowledge centre cluster spanning three websites throughout the 2 districts together with a subsea optical-fibre cable touchdown station to be developed by Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd. To allow this, the State authorities has allotted a complete of 480 acres to 200 acres in Tarluvada and 120 acres at Adavivaram and Mudasarlova villages in Visakhapatnam district and 160 acres at Rambilli in Anakapalli district, the HRF stated.
The HRF cautioned that these knowledge centres will probably be a menace to residents of Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli as centres of this scale are notoriously water and energy-hungry, consuming billions of litres yearly for cooling and upkeep the world over.
“In Visakhapatnam, the place groundwater depletion, erratic rainfall and local weather variability have already created acute water stress, such a mission will nearly definitely intensify the disaster, diverting treasured water from native residents and amounting to a grave injustice,” HRF state basic secretary Y. Rajesh and HRF AP&TG coordination committee member VS Krishna stated.
The HRF representatives stated that these knowledge centres are removed from being the promised engine of jobs, inexperienced development and digital progress, and these tasks characterize a looming environmental and financial catastrophe. It is an enterprise that dangers irreversible ecological harm, huge public useful resource diversion and deepening company seize of sources beneath the guise of technological development, they added.
Referring the progress reviews of the Google, the HRF stated that Google’s two knowledge facilities at Ashburn and Leesburg collectively make use of solely about 400 individuals instantly, regardless of producing roughly 3,100 oblique jobs. These figures spotlight how minimal direct employment accompanies huge capital funding. Likewise, Meta’s upcoming two-gigawatt AI knowledge middle in Richland Parish, Louisiana, being constructed at a staggering price of $10 billion, is projected to create barely 500 everlasting positions as soon as operational.
“Experiences from comparable tasks, comparable to Google’s Data Center in Uruguay, present that these amenities typically generate poisonous waste, emit greenhouse gases and ship negligible native profit,” Mr. Rajesh stated.
Given Vizag’s scorching local weather, the proposed advanced would require much more water-intensive cooling methods, additional reducing groundwater tables and risking contamination of native water sources via chemical run off and waste discharge. Another important concern is vitality consumption. A one-gigawatt facility would demand huge quantities of electrical energy, equal to powering a mid-size metropolis with lakhs of houses, straining an already overburdened grid. Google’s claims that this hyperscale facility will run on 100% renewable vitality is technically untenable and is a false assertion. The State’s grid can’t provide uninterrupted renewable energy with out fossil-fuel backup which makes the mission’s co-called ‘inexperienced’ credentials a misleading façade,” Mr. Rajesh and Mr. Krishna stated.
In actuality, knowledge facilities of this scale rely closely on fossil gas throughout peak demand, thereby producing huge carbon emissions and undermining world local weather targets. It is exactly due to such environmental, vitality, and water considerations, that communities around the globe have mobilised towards knowledge middle tasks, lots of them far smaller than the one being deliberate in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli.
Published – October 18, 2025 04:25 pm IST
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