2026 Articles

Whose water is AI drinking in India?

Sathuluri, David; Sharma, Mukul

In this article, the authors interrogates the political economy of water consumption underpinning India's rapidly expanding AI data centre infrastructure. Invoking B.R. Ambedkar's 1927 Mahad satyagraha as a foundational frame, the authors argue that the allocation of water resources to AI server cooling is not a neutral technical decision but a profoundly political one — a determination of whose consumption is valorized and whose deprivation is rendered acceptable. With 342 million Indians still lacking access to safe drinking water, the prioritization of AI server cooling by some of the world's most profitable corporations constitutes a political choice about whose consumption matters and whose deprivation is acceptable collateral damage. The communities most likely to bear the cost are those already most water-insecure: Dalits, Adivasis, women in water-scarce districts, and the urban poor living outside the formal supply grid. The article critically examines the wave of commitments by global corporations to build AI infrastructure in India, situating these investments within a context of acute environmental stress and caste-based inequality. The authors conclude that the question before India is not whether to embrace AI, but whether its infrastructure will deepen existing inequalities or dismantle them — a determination to be made through law, regulation, and political will, not merely in server rooms.

Keywords: AI, Climate Justice, India, Ambedkar, Political Economy, Dalits, Equality, Caste