New Delhi, March 2 -- India has positioned itself as a global hub for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital infrastructure, with massive investments underway. But AI-focused data centres are energy- and water-intensive.

As India accelerates data-centre expansion to support AI growth, policymakers and utilities face a key question: will this strain electricity grids and intensify water stress in emerging data-centre hubs? Mint explores.

Training and deploying AI models takes place inside power-hungry data centres. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a typical AI-focused data centre can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, while the largest facilities under construction could consume 20 times as much.

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