Google is building what may be its largest AI datacentre outside the United States in Tarluvada, a tiny farming village in Andhra Pradesh, India. The project — announced publicly as a 1GW facility — has state environmental clearances revealing its true scale at 2.51GW, the power equivalent of two large nuclear reactors at full output. Over a year, that amounts to upwards of 30% of the current energy consumption of all of Andhra Pradesh, a state of 55 million people. The partner for construction is the Adani Group, one of India's most politically connected conglomerates. The state government of Andhra Pradesh, allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, issued environmental clearances in nine days with no public consultation. Three petitions challenging the approval have been filed with India's National Green Tribunal, alleging the government's risk assessments were "grossly inadequate, scientifically unrealistic, and misleading." A separate public interest litigation has been filed in the Andhra Pradesh high court. Currently, 75% of India's electricity grid runs on coal, which makes Google's pledge to help generate "new, clean energy" a promissory note against a carbon-intensive reality. The economic incentive package tells the extraction story plainly. The state offered Google decades-long tax breaks, discounted land, and access to cheap electricity and water — subsidies and incentives estimated at 220 billion rupees ($2.2bn) over 20 years. For a $15bn project by one of the world's richest companies, the subsidy represents a direct transfer from Indian taxpayers and ratepayers to Google's AI infrastructure buildout. Late last year, the state granted permission for another 1GW datacentre to be built by Reliance Industries, signaling this is policy, not a one-off. On the ground, 520 local families in Tarluvada had land taken back that the government had allocated to them 20 years ago. Villagers report receiving no notice until Adani Group security guards erected fences and blocked them from plots they had farmed for years. Of the 47 Dalit community farmers who were compensated, the terms have proved hollow: one farmer, P Venkat Rao, received $40,000 for his only acre but says the government's promise of replacement land and one job per family has not materialized. Without land to farm, he described the compensation as "worthless." The environmental costs compound the economic ones. More than 100 acres of forest have been cleared. One of the three datacentre sites sits metres from reserve forest, a drinking water reservoir, and a wildlife sanctuary home to endangered leopards. Temperatures in Tarluvada already reach 45°C in summer; datacentres are documented heat emitters, and mass deforestation amplifies the thermal load. Google says the project will use air-cooling and have "no expected impact" on the local community — a claim that strains credulity at 2.51GW scale. Activists with the Human Rights Forum allege their campaign has been met with deliberate silencing, including videos and social media pages being taken down. Farmers report police threats and routine detention for protesting. The state government did not respond to the silencing allegation. Village head BRB Naidu captured the information asymmetry: "Many in the village are very worried. But the government has refused to answer our questions." The structural pattern is legible: a global technology corporation exports the environmental and social costs of AI infrastructure to a jurisdiction with weaker regulatory enforcement, partnering with politically connected local capital, while the host government competes for investment by offering subsidies, fast-tracking approvals, and suppressing dissent. India generated nearly 20% of the world's data but hosts only 3% of global datacentres — the government frames this gap as opportunity. The question is opportunity for whom.
