Amazon points to water conservation steps in India amid data centre scrutiny

By Ashwin Manikandan and ‌Jaspreet Kalra

MUMBAI, June ​19 (Reuters) - ​Amazon said on Friday its Indian operations had reached a major milestone in water conservation, at a time when global tech ‌giants face increasing pressure over their expansion of resource-hungry AI data ⁠centres.

The U.S.-based company announced it had turned "water positive" in India this year - meaning it returns ‌more water to communities than ‌it uses across its operations, which include data centres, corporate offices and warehouses.

It said it accomplished the goal a year earlier than planned, both ​by reducing water use at its facilities and through projects such as watershed restoration and efficient irrigation.

Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet's Google are among ⁠companies that are facing shareholder and activist pushback over the environmental impact of data centre projects, Reuters ​reported earlier this year.

Amazon has set a goal to become water positive globally in its data centre operations by 2030. ​The company said it does not use ‌water to cool its Indian data centres.

The issue of water is particularly acute in India, which is home to 18% ⁠of the global population but only 4% of the world's freshwater resources.

The summer generally brings shortages and rationing, and this year is particularly severe, with a strong ⁠El Nino resulting in weak monsoon rains.

Among the hardest hit states are Karnataka, home to ​tech-hub Bengaluru, and Maharashtra, where financial capital Mumbai is located. Mumbai, with a population of 13 million, has just 40 days' worth of water left, authorities said this week.

Amazon ‌is expanding its footprint in India, where it plans to invest more than $35 billion by 2030 to boost AI ‌capabilities and exports.

Its cloud services provider, Amazon Web Services, plans to invest about $8.2 ⁠billion in Maharashtra, India's information ‌technology ministry said last year.

Microsoft ​and Google have also announced sizeable data centre investments in India over the past year.

(Reporting by Ashwin Manikandan; Editing by ‌Kevin Buckland)

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