Authors: Abhay Gupta, Danshri Ghatole, Harshita Malviya, Mili Aggarwal, Shikha Maurya, and Vedika Sharma

Abstract

Water scarcity has been a major issue in India for past few decades, presenting serious environmental and socio-economic challenges including ongoing droughts, lowering groundwater levels, and unequal access to clean water where the economically weaker and marginalized communities, actually bear the brunt of these shortages. The implications go beyond just people; water depletion also poses risks to ecosystems, biodiversity, agricultural output, and overall environmental health. Meanwhile, India is diving into digital transformation with programs like Digital India and the India AI Mission and the recent AI Summit, aiming to make the country a frontrunner in Artificial Intelligence (AI). But while these technological initiatives focus on growth and innovation, there is active ignorance from officials on water usage by AI infrastructure, especially when it comes to data centers that depend on water-heavy cooling systems, power generation, and semiconductor production. This paper delves into water usage of AI data centers and examines if current environmental laws are enough to handle the heavy water needs of AI infrastructure. The paper also adapts the qualitative thematic review of existing literature along with doctrinal legal analysis, utilizing academic studies, policy papers, environmental reports, and legal texts. The focus is on water consumption in AI data centers, India’s growing data center scene, current environmental regulations, and how other countries are managing sustainable AI practices. Through this paper the researchers speculate that, even though India has constitutional rights, environmental laws, and water management systems in place for protecting the environment, these are not created to tackle the unique issues brought on by AI technologies. There are still some big gaps in regulations when it comes to water-use transparency, sustainability benchmarks, and specific environmental oversight for AI. The paper concludes by suggesting that India needs to enhance and update its legal and regulatory framework to make sure that as tech advances quickly, it doesn’t compromise water security, environmental health, or social fairness.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI), AI Data Centres, Water Consumption, Water Scarcity, Environmental Regulation, Sustainable Development.