Amazon said on Friday its Indian operations had ​reached a major milestone in water conservation, at a time ‌when global tech giants face increasing pressure over ​their expansion of resource-hungry AI data centres.

The ⁠US-based company announced it had turned “water positive” in India this year - meaning it returns more water to communities than it uses ‌across its operations, which include data centres, corporate offices and warehouses.

It said it accomplished ‌the goal a year earlier than planned, both ‌by ⁠reducing water use at its facilities and through ⁠projects such as watershed restoration and efficient irrigation.

Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google are among companies that are facing shareholder and activist pushback ​over the environmental impact ‌of data centre projects, Reuters reported earlier this year.

Amazon has set a goal to become water positive globally in its data centre operations by 2030. ‌The company said it does not use water ​to cool its Indian data centres.

The issue of water is particularly acute in ⁠India, which is home to 18 per cent of the global population but only 4 per cent of the world’s freshwater resources.

The summer ‌generally brings shortages and rationing, and this year is particularly severe, with a strong El Nino resulting in weak monsoon rains.

Among the hardest hit states are Karnataka, home to tech-hub Bengaluru, and Maharashtra, where financial capital Mumbai is located. Mumbai, with a population ‌of 13 million, has just 40 days’ worth of water ​left, authorities said this week.

Amazon is expanding its footprint in India, where it plans to ⁠invest more than $35 billion by 2030 to boost AI ⁠capabilities and exports.

Its cloud services provider, Amazon Web Services, plans to invest about $8.2 billion in Maharashtra, ‌India’s information technology ministry said last year.

Microsoft and Google have also announced sizeable data centre investments in ​India over the past year.

Published on June 19, 2026