"Can't cook or shower": Indonesians blame AI data centres for water shortages on Batam

Residents of Batam, an Indonesian island south of Singapore, have protested as taps ran dry while data centres for the AI boom spring up nearby, AFP reported. At the worst point, dozens of residents staged protests outside Nongsa Digital Park, a special economic zone with a new cluster of data centres.

"We cannot eat rice without water. We cannot cook vegetables without water," tradesman Juniardi Adinda Sembiring Gurukinayan told AFP. The water utility operator, Air Batam Hilir, said a long drought had left the nearby Nongsa Reservoir very low and that an electrical fault further disrupted supply; an industry source said the tech park draws water from a different reservoir. Batam's mayor said in October that the disruption "was not caused by data centres or AI," according to local media.

Authorities told developers in late September they must build plants to desalinate seawater for cooling. Companies behind operational or planned data centres at the park include BW Digital, DayOne and Princeton Digital Group, and owner Gaw Capital Partners said it was aware of residents' distress, the Inquirer reported.

The anger extends across the region. Data centre capacity in Malaysia's Johor has grown from 10 megawatts to 2.1 gigawatts in about five years, and residents there have protested over dust and flash floods linked to construction. Southeast Asia's data centre capacity is projected to triple from 2025 levels by 2030, according to KPMG.