Bengaluru, March 11 Karnataka IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge said on Wednesday that the state government is considering a "sustainable data center policy" amid concerns about the significant environmental costs associated with their water and energy consumption.
Responding to a question by Doddaballapur BJP MLA Dheeraj Muniraj during the Question Hour in the assembly, he said, "We have 32 private data centers operating in the state. He (MLA) wants data centers from the government side. We already have a data center policy, which is under review."
Referring to the data centers as "necessary evil," he said they are needed for AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies.
"However, data centers also consume a lot of water and energy. Therefore, we at the government are considering a sustainable data center policy, because our previous data center policy is two or three years old, and with changing technology, we are planning for sustainable data centers."
The Minister said the government's focus is shifting beyond Bengaluru to coastal areas like Mangaluru.
"Since we can bring submarine cables there. We are discussing with private companies. I have written to the Union Telecom Ministry and requested a submarine landing at Mangaluru. They said they would provide assistance if private companies do it."
Pointing out that hyperscale data centers would not be suitable for Bengaluru due to the absence of a port and water constraints, he said, "It would be better if it is on the sea side. Therefore, our focus is on edge, small, medium, and large data centers, rather than hyperscale. Data centers requiring more than 40 megawatts of power will be hyperscale."
Explaining the economics of data centers, Kharge said, “One megawatt requires about Rs 70 crore. One acre can only yield one megawatt. We have to spend 25 million liters per megawatt per year for one data center. Five questions on ChatGPT will consume 500 ml of water. That is how much the consumption is."
However, new technologies have emerged that involve using treated water in data centers. “That’s why we will re-evaluate our policy and come up with a sustainable one."
Earlier, Muniraj urged the government to set up data center parks in his Doddaballapur constituency, saying that Bengaluru, the IT city, was losing out on data centers as companies were moving to other cities.
According to him, Bengaluru is facing a shortage of colocation and large enterprise data centers, and there is no dedicated data center park from the government, which is why large enterprises are leaving Bengaluru.
Noting that Bengaluru ranks behind Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Delhi in terms of data centers, the MLA said there is a growing need for large data centers.
For full-stack data centers, a 'Data Center park' should be sanctioned for Doddaballapura, near which the KWIN (Knowledge, Wellbeing, and Innovation) City is coming up, he said, adding that "Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Alibaba, Tencent, Oracle, Apple, NTT – all of them have offices in Bengaluru. Their data centers should be retained in Bengaluru."