Whose water is AI drinking in India?

Source: Eco-Business
Published on: 2026-04-21 06:32

Every tech giant in the world is interested in building AI data centres in India. Late last year, Microsoft, Amazon and Google committed tens of billions of dollars to doing so. This year, the Adani Group pledged US$100 billion, bringing the combined first wave to US$167.5 billion. India is now confronted with a question societies need to field time and again as technologies evolve. It is not whether the country should embrace AI, but on whose terms and at what cost. Technologies do not arrive as neutral instruments. They come as forces - creative or destructive, liberating or dispossessing - shaped by the interests and ideologies of those who deploy them. The steam engine inaugurated industrial capitalism and facilitated colonial extraction. The Green Revolution fed millions and indebted millions more. Artificial intelligence carries similar epoch-making potential, but India is welcom...

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