Sold for Servers: India’s Faustian Bargain with Big Tech

Let’s paint a picture- A city prospering with industrial

advancements, reveling the fruits of technology and basking in

employment and sustainability with no repercussions because of

the able and viable management of the big corporations. This

utopia sounds like a dream, well some might say it is a dream

because all of these are just empty promises masking the ugly

truth.

The recent AI summit in India grabbed many eyeballs for myriad

reasons, the most prominent being the announcement by big tech

companies like Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA of partnerships and

investments to expand AI infrastructure in India.

This news felt like a personal victory to most of the “nationalist”

youth and your colony’s WhatsApp uncle who believe it’s a

masterstroke in diplomacy by our hon ’ableprime minister. However,

in a detailed inquiry, we can easily outline the detrimental

consequences of this deal and its adverse impact on our

environment.

Let’s delve deeper into their promises and pledges:

Google

Sundar Pichai announced a $15 billion AI hub in Visakhapatnam, a

$30 million AI for Government challenge, a $30 million AI for

Science fund, and a new Climate Technology Centre in partnership

with the Indian government The Visakhapatnam data centre was

also presented as part of a sustainable AI hub vision.

Microsoftwith sustainability framed around building AI diffusion, multilingual

capabilities, and measuring AI’s development impact — though no

specific carbon or energy targets were mentioned at the summit.

Reliance Industries/Jio pledged $110 billion over seven years to

build sovereign AI compute infrastructure, including multi-gigawatt

data centres, a nationwide edge computing network, and new Jio-

integrated AI services.

All of these empty rhetoric promises seem very credible, and

having them backed by loud pledges to champion renewable

resources and sustainable development seems like a dream. So

here we are again, anything that feels too good to be true, often

times is not true.

If we do a basic investigation into any of the environmental reports

published by the aforementioned companies, we notice how the

numbers do not add up. The environment certificates and power

purchasing agreements published by Google and Microsoft do

depict a decrease in emissions, but the more accurate location-

based emissions, which reflect the actual carbon intensity of local

grids, tell a very different story. Microsoft’s real emissions more

than doubled in four years (from 4.3 million to nearly 10 million

metric tons CO₂), while Google’s climbed from 5.8 million to over

11.2 million metric tons over the same period.

The 2025 report by the Kairos Fellowship found that Google’s total

greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1,515% from 2010 to 2024,

emitting 21.9 million more metric tons of carbon in 2024 than in

2010. The report accuses Google of using “market-based

emissions” accounting to hide its actual rising emissions.

Microsoft has been accused of hypocrisy for styling itself as a “first

mover” on climate while targeting fossil fuels as the most

significant growth opportunity for AI and cloud computing.freshwater consumption in 2024 but it does not account for its

28% rapid increase in consumption in just a year. The net result is

still massive water depletion, regardless of the replenishment

claim.

These are just examples of how big companies use buzzwords and

messaging tactics to sweep their malfeasance under the rug.

History has proven to us time and again that the mere promises and

pledges without being backed by tangible action have never

resulted in anything credible.

Now, to move on let’s focus on the fact that why such companies

are so keen to invest billions of dollars in India. A country thatPS[ is

often dismissed and underestimated as an afterthought by the

world leaders, has suddenly become the centre of attention. Is it

because, finally the world is recognising our potential and providing

us with an opportunity to deliver results? Isn’t this the dream? Well,

the golden rule of thumb goes: if it is too good to be true, most

often it’s not true.

The real reason why India is at the focus for AI development and

infrastructure building is far more self-serving and malicious than

the storyline fed to the masses. The main reason is, the vast real

estate offered by India, its struggling economy and its substantially

more lenient approach towards environmental regulations which

allows these big tech companies to further their greed-driven goals

without any real consequences for their dire actions.

Now to shift focus to Google’s AI development project in

Visakhapatnam, we can see cracks in the system. Countries like

Ireland, Chile, Germany and the Netherlands initially rejected this

very offer citing excessive water consumption, unacceptable

ecological and social risks.

This project, though championed to bring in expanding job

opportunities, fails to provide the accurate picture that data centreshundred long-term positions, most of which are highly specialised

technical roles filled by external recruits. Local employment will be

temporary and low-skill, limited to construction and routine

maintenance work. With the new agreement, 430 acres of land

have been added to the deal. However, they do not account for the

social displacement of millions of people, land loss, and pollution

concerns.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; the long-term implications will be

far more gruesome The main issue for selling our soul in the name

of development leads to damaging outcomes like water stress and

depletion, social displacement through land acquisition, energy

grid burdens, questionable job creation and myriad other

environmental concerns.

These atrocities should not be the price to be paid for the

development of a country. In the guise of economic growth and job

creation, we will be depleting our already exhausted natural

resources all for the sake of AI development which will lead us to

our doomsday.

A country like India, where the AQI numbers feel like a video game

score due to the staggering numbers, where rivers which are

worshipped as goddesses are choking in toxic wastes, and landfills

which rise to the size of mountains, should not be greenlighting

projects which are proven to deplete and corrupt already strained

natural resources. If you believe these projects will help us to

eradicate poverty, finally give us an opportunity to enter the

developed world by discarding the “developing country” tag. Well,

you know the rule:

If it’s too good to be true, most often it’s not true