Rahul Somvanshi
**Headline:**
Visakhapatnam’s Planned Google AI Data Centre: What’s Confirmed and What’s Still Contested
**Dek:**
A large AI data-centre campus for Google, AdaniConneX and Airtel Nxtra is planned across three sites near Visakhapatnam, but a forest-clearing claim circulating about the project goes beyond what available reporting establishes. Separate reporting on the project’s environmental clearances raises unresolved questions about land classification and review scope — without confirming what has actually happened on the ground.
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A large data-centre campus planned near Visakhapatnam for Google, in partnership with AdaniConneX and Airtel Nxtra, has become the subject of competing claims about its environmental footprint. Industry body IBEF reports that the project is planned to deliver 1 GW of capacity across nearly 600 acres at three locations — Tharluwada, Adavivaram and Rambilli. IBEF is an industry publication whose reporting is compiled from secondary research and carries a disclaimer to that effect; it is not an official government source, and no official figure for the project’s scale appears in the available reporting.
India Today separately describes the project as planned across more than 500 acres at the same three locations — a figure broadly consistent with, though not identical to, IBEF’s. That the project is planned, rather than built or currently under construction, is the one point consistently reflected across the available reporting.
What the clearance reporting says
According to reporting by The News Minute, Andhra Pradesh’s State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) granted two separate clearances, both under Category B2, to two project special purpose vehicles that The News Minute reports are owned by Adani Infra, located at Tarluwada and Rambilli. Category B2 classification meant the projects did not require a formal Environmental Impact Assessment report or a public consultation process under that route.
The News Minute’s reporting also states that the clearance document for the Tarluwada site acknowledges — citing the nearly-90% figure — that a large majority of that proposed site falls within the Pedda Chukka Konda Reserve Forest. The same clearance document, per that reporting, overrules that acknowledgment by separately citing a Survey of India topo sheet stating that no forest is indicated at the site. The News Minute’s reporting presents both the forest-overlap acknowledgment and the topo-sheet rebuttal without resolving which prevails, and this article does not resolve that conflict either. The outlet also reports, separately, that the Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary lies roughly 1.53 km from the project area; that distance figure is reported by The News Minute alone.
Activists including E.A.S. Sarma, per The News Minute’s reporting, argue that the project should instead have been classified under the more stringent Category A rather than B2. That is an argument attributed entirely to Sarma and fellow activists; the available reporting does not establish that Category A classification was legally required, nor does it report any ruling or outcome on the question.
A separate set of questions
India Today’s reporting attributes a distinct set of questions to activist Bolisetty Satyanarayana, who has sought clarity on the approvals granted, the project’s water requirements, and how the sites were selected. These are raised as open questions about process and resource planning, not as a claim that forest land has already been cleared. India Today’s reporting and The News Minute’s reporting document different things — one a set of clearance details, the other a separate activist’s questions — and should not be read as two sources independently confirming the same clearance findings.
What isn’t established
A claim has circulated that roughly 600 acres of forest have been cleared for this project. The reporting reviewed here does not independently establish that claim. Nothing in the available material confirms that forest has been cleared, that biodiversity has been harmed, or what has actually occurred on any of the three sites. No court or National Green Tribunal ruling is reported in the available material, and none should be assumed.
Establishing whether forest clearing has occurred would require records beyond what current reporting summarizes: land classification and survey records for each site (including the Survey of India topo sheet cited in the Tarluwada clearance itself), any forest-diversion approval if forest land is in fact involved, the full clearance documents and site plans rather than news summaries of them, and any filings before a court or the National Green Tribunal. Until those primary records are examined, the dispute over the Tarluwada site’s forest status, along with the broader classification challenge raised by activists, remains an open, unresolved question rather than a settled fact in either direction.
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