Seeking your support in opposing the expansion of hyperscale data centers

Visakhapatnam, India, is witnessing an alarming and rapid surge of hyperscale data center projects across ecologically fragile and densely populated regions. These projects are being pushed with very little transparency, no public participation through hearings, and fast-tracked environmental clearances. Alarmingly, the intensification of environmental degradation in the form of hill cutting, deforestation, and intensive construction in this sensitive zone threatens the city’s persisting water stress and environmental instability.

The 2.5 GW Google-Adani Hyperscale data center is split across three sites. One at Adavivaram-Mudasarlova of 512 MW capacity is barely 120 metres from the Mudasarlova reservoir and squarely within its catchment area. Mudasarlova is a critical drinking water source for the city, and construction at this site threatens natural water flows into the reservoir. The project site also lies within the sensitive hill ecosystems connected to the Kailasagiri-Kambalakonda forest landscape, schools, residential areas, and hospitals. At the same time, Hyperscale data center projects are proliferating across the Visakhapatnam region - from Tarluvada near the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary, to Rambilli on the Anakapalli coast and near Bhogapuram, where Reliance Industries has proposed a massive 1.5 GW facility. Most recently, the State government approved the expansion of Sifi Infinit Spaces’ 500 MW data center on a 50-acre site within the Eco-Sensitive Zone of the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary at Paradesipalem. Taken together, the projects at Tarluvada, Adavivaram and Paradesipalem would effectively encircle the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary, a critical ecological refuge and lung space for the region. If allowed to proceed, these projects will permanently reshape Vizag’s hills, coastline and surrounding ecosystems. Their enormous demand for land, water and power risks overwhelming regional infrastructure and accelerating ecological degradation on an unprecedented scale.

These data centers are being promoted as symbols of ‘development’ and ‘digital progress’. But the destruction of forests, reservoir catchments, farmlands and coastal ecosystems is not development. It is ecological devastation and further straining of planetary boundaries. Visakhapatnam is not an empty industrial corridor to be carved up for corporate profit. It is a living landscape of hills, wetlands, forests, working-class and farming communities, villages and livelihoods intertwined with its natural systems that are displaced to make space for AI data centers. Unfortunately, this isn't restricted to Vizag alone. Telangana's proposed data center city aiming for 11 GW and Gujarat's 7.5 GW point to an aggressive expansion of hyperscale data centers in India.

The Stop Dirty Data Centers, hereby, calls for your solidarity against the expansion of hyperscale data centers, at a juncture when India faces a severe water-agrarian crisis; and heatwave-related fatalities, as is. In defence of transparent development planning and implementation, and sustainable technologies and futures, we call upon the larger sections of society to join and strengthen the movement against irreversible ecological destruction under the facade of development and hyperscale data centers. ... show more