Yotta pushes back on fears data centres could strain India’s power, water

As concerns grow over the strain India’s data centre boom could put on urban power and water supplies, Yotta Data Services CEO Sunil Gupta said large operators can build dedicated electricity networks and closed-loop cooling systems to limit their dependence on local infrastructure.

“People are applying lessons from the failures of data centres in the US without understanding how differently the industry builds and operates facilities in India,” Gupta told ET AI on the sidelines of the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai.

In July, more than 100 residents protested against a proposed Amazon data centre in Thane, raising concerns over noise, environmental risks and the potential strain on local water and power supplies.


Residents have also questioned the decision to locate the facility in Balkum, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals. Amazon has said its Thane facility will receive electricity through a dedicated high-voltage substation and will not use water for cooling.

Also Read: Data centres are coming. Where will India find the people to run them?

Similar concerns have emerged around Google’s planned $15-billion data centre hub in Visakhapatnam, which is being developed with the Adani Group. Environmental groups and local residents have raised concerns about its potential impact on water supplies and the nearby Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary. Google has said it will use advanced air cooling and comply with Indian regulations, according to a Reuters report.

Gupta said Yotta had not encountered similar opposition at its facilities in Panvel near Mumbai and Greater Noida. “I believe many of these concerns are unfounded in the Indian context,” he said.

Yotta expands its computing infrastructure

Gupta said the company expects its installed base to reach about 38,000 GPUs by the end of October. He added that the company plans to deploy another 96,000 GPUs between May and August next year.

Yotta is setting up a 80 MW building in Mumbai and plans to build a 120 MW facility in Greater Noida to accommodate part of this expansion, according to Gupta. More than 85% of the demand for its current and planned capacity is expected to come from overseas customers.

On electricity consumption, Gupta said India was broadly power-surplus, although it could experience pressure during peak summer periods. The larger challenge, according to him, was the ability of local distribution networks to carry power to large facilities.

“If somebody builds a data centre in the heart of Mumbai and connects it to the nearest electricity pole, the nearby substations and power lines may have to divert capacity from homes and commercial buildings. The data centre would then become the culprit,” he said.

Gupta said Yotta avoids the local distribution network at its campuses. Its Mumbai facility is located in Panvel, while its Delhi-region campus is in an industrial area of Greater Noida.

Also Read: India’s AI data-centre push could drive 5% of global chip demand by 2030

“We have our own power distribution license and have built substations at our campuses and have laid dedicated transmission lines running 15-20 kilometres to connect directly to the high-voltage grid,” Gupta said.

He also expects small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) to eventually offer data centre companies another source of dedicated electricity. Operators could install such reactors near their facilities and reduce their dependence on the grid for generation and distribution, he said.

However, Gupta acknowledged that the technology is not yet economically viable in India and would require a supporting regulatory framework.

“The real questions are whether it is commercially viable and whether the necessary regulatory framework is in place. Today, it is not commercially feasible and operators would also have to go through the required regulatory process,” he said.

On water consumption, Gupta said concerns based on older data centres in the US did not reflect the cooling technology used in most modern Indian facilities.

“There are two broad cooling technologies...air cooled chillers and water cooled chillers,” he said. Older water cooled facilities continuously bring in fresh water and use evaporation to remove heat, which can result in the consumption of millions of litres each day, Gupta said.

India’s data centre industry began building facilities of 50 MW or more only around 2016-17, by which time operators understood that securing a continuous supply of fresh water over a building’s lifetime would be difficult, he said.

“The industry therefore adopted air cooled chillers. These systems still use water, but the water circulates in a closed loop. The pipes are filled and then sealed; there is no continuous supply of fresh water,” Gupta said.

In such systems, water carries heat from the chips to chillers installed on top of the building, he explained. The chillers release the heat into the air before circulating the same water back through the facility.

“In an air cooled system, the water remains within a closed, sealed loop and does not evaporate,” Gupta said. He added that most modern Indian data centres would not have cooling towers or a continuous flow of fresh water entering the campus for cooling.

He also rejected the suggestion that data centres generate constant humming sounds during normal operations. Noise could become a concern when a power outage forces dozens of diesel generators to start simultaneously, but such generators are otherwise used mainly for periodic testing, he said.

“Noise can become a concern if the main power supply fails and all the backup generators start,” Gupta said, adding that environmental approvals require facilities to remain within prescribed noise limits.

“During normal operations, a data centre does not create the kind of humming sound people describe,” he said.