The island where locals say data centres are taking their water

A backlash has been building against data centres across the world, from the US to the UK to parts of Asia, as tech companies pour billions into AI infrastructure.

People are worried about how the huge, windowless buildings might change their neighbourhoods, the constant hum of machines, the security lights that could stay on all night, and the pressure this puts on water and energy resources.

While electricity powers the centres, the water keeps the servers from frying – engineers deploy elaborate cooling systems, which consume a lot of water.

Research in the US suggests a typical data centre consumes around 300,000 gallons of water a day, or about as much as 1,000 US households. A larger, 50MW facility could take as much water as 2,200 households per day, and enough electricity to power 22,000 homes, according to Malaysia’s central bank.

It’s unclear how much water or electricity the data centres in Batam are consuming.

But the island routinely faces water shortages, and the levels are worse this year, possibly because of a historic “super” El Niño.

Devoid of natural freshwater sources, Batam’s 1.3 million people rely on rainwater collected in six artificial reservoirs.

Nongsa reservoir, which supplies water to Bakau Serip, where Dewi lives, would dry up over the next month with no rainfall, simulations by local environmental non-profit group Akar Bhumi Indonesia suggest.

“The water shortage is affecting our livelihoods… Money that should be used to buy rice is now spent on water drums,” Dewi says. “My husband has to wait up overnight to get water, and then go straight to work the next morning.”

Batam’s water utility had earlier said that it would consider measures like cloud seeding should the water shortage continue. When asked about the recent protests, they pointed us to earlier statements.