AdaniConneX-Google Visakhapatnam Data Centres to Use Air Cooling, Capping Freshwater Draw

19 October 2026National

The roughly 1 GW data-centre campuses being built at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh by AdaniConneX - the Adani Enterprises-EdgeConneX joint venture - with Google will use air cooling rather than water-based evaporative cooling. Combined freshwater draw across the three sites is planned to stay below the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, about 80% of it for landscaping, kitchens and worker facilities, with on-site recycling, dedicated industrial water connections instead of municipal supply, and a zero-discharge policy. Google calls the USD 15 billion project its largest investment in India; ground was broken on 28 April 2026 and phase one is targeted for December 2028.

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Visakhapatnam is Andhra Pradesh's largest city and hosts the headquarters of the Indian Navy's Eastern Naval Command | Evaporative cooling removes heat by evaporating water, whereas air cooling uses air as the heat-transfer medium, sharply cutting water demand | NITI Aayog's Frontier Tech Hub released a Data Centre Evaluation Framework in October 2026 whose five pillars include Water and Cooling management

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