Virag Gupta's column: AI is not free, expensive deal of data centers is also included in it

In the upcoming mid-term elections in the US, the issue of damage to water, energy and the environment from data centers has started gaining momentum. After heavy opposition, work on projects worth $ 130 billion in about 75 data centers has stopped in just 3 months. Since large data centers are necessary to earn huge profits from the AI revolution, they are now being tried to be installed in India. That is, there is an atmosphere of enthusiasm in India about those that are being banned in America. There is a lot of garbage in cities, but no one wants to build a garbage dump near their home. America's data centers are also like "Lakshagrih". Instead of discouraging them, it can be dangerous to exempt them from cheap land, tax and environmental laws in India. It is important to understand 5 aspects related to data centers running in the name of digital revolution. 1. Government data as per the Public Records Act, digital payment data as per the Reserve Bank's rules of April 6, 2018, and data protection and localization are necessary according to the Data Protection Act of 2023. The collection of important and non-important data within the borders of the country is called localization. The most important aspect of this is our control over our data, which makes the country more resistant to problems like information leakage, identity theft, security, etc. The government response in the Lok Sabha on February 11 and March 18, 2026, suggests that there will be localization of India's data in these data centers. But this assumption is wrong. 2. The public and farmers are struggling with power shortage. But rules are being made to provide 24-hour electricity to data centers at subsidized rates. According to Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, an investment of 30 lakh crore is needed to meet the 500 GW requirement of non-fossil fuels. People are being asked to save petrol and diesel, but there is no assessment of diesel consumption and damage to the environment for data centers running from giant generator sets. 3. 160 acres of land of a local temple in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, has been controversially allocated for a data center of Google. There is also a reservoir and Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary next to the project site. But ignoring the law, the state government has given permission to build a data center within a radius of 1 km. According to the 2006 law, EIA permission of the environment is necessary for large industries and commercial construction. But under the guise of Google, SPV companies have obtained environmental-clearance for data centers in the name of building projects less than 1.5 lakh meters in size. 4. After pressure from Trump and tech companies, the central government has given a 20-year tax exemption for data centers. On the same lines, the Andhra Pradesh government has announced exemption in all taxes like state GST and stamp duty. The connectivity of these data centers will be with the sea cable coming from abroad. In matters related to communication and defense, the permission of the central government is necessary, which is being ignored. It is necessary to fix legal accountability in India of foreign companies like Google, Meta and Amazon that set up data centers. 5. The Andhra Pradesh government is giving a rebate of more than 22 thousand crores with land and single window clearance for 3 data centers of one thousand MW. But the project report of the data center does not show any roadmap for investment and employment generation. In the Mahabharata, a half-truthful message of "Naro va Kunjro" was sent from Yudhishthira to confuse Dronacharya. On the same lines, operating a data center under the guise of building permission can be dangerous for the rule of law along with the environment. (These are the author's own views)