Around 300 residents on Indonesia's Batam island stormed a commercial compound in Nongsa Digital Park carrying empty plastic bottles and jerry cans to protest severe water shortages, highlighting tensions between growing data centre investments and access to basic utilities.
Residents in nearby villages, including Bakau Serip, say their household taps have been dry for three months. Some families have diverted money intended for food to buy water drums, while others rely on tanker trucks delivering dirty or cloudy water. Some residents wait overnight to collect water before leaving for work, says the BBC.
The shortages have fuelled frustration over the contrast between interrupted residential supplies and the continuous water provision to nearby data centres, which require water to cool their servers.
Batam's 1.3 million residents depend entirely on rainwater collected in six artificial reservoirs, as the island has no natural freshwater sources. Reservoir levels have fallen amid a prolonged dry spell and a historic "super" El Niño.
Local environmental group Akar Bhumi Indonesia has estimated that the Nongsa reservoir could run dry within a month if rainfall does not resume.
Data centres require substantial amounts of water for cooling. Globally, a standard facility can consume around 300,000 gallons of water a day, equivalent to the needs of 1,000 US households, while a 50-megawatt facility can use as much water as 2,200 households.
Data centre investment gathers pace
Batam is seeking to establish itself as a regional digital hub, attracting more than $6.7 billion (£5.1 billion) in data centre investments as of mid-2026.
The expansion has been driven partly by demand spilling over from Singapore, about an hour away by ferry. Singapore imposed a moratorium on data centres from 2019 to 2022 because of land and energy constraints, prompting investors to consider nearby locations, including Batam and Johor in Malaysia.
The neighbouring locations offer proximity to Singapore, lower operating costs and access to subsea cable networks.
BP Batam, the island's trade and industry agency, has approved 10 data centres, six of them in Nongsa Digital Park. Two facilities are operational, one is under construction and at least six others are under review.
Projects include a 13,000-square-metre facility by Gaw Capital and Sinar Primera, a planned 450-megawatt facility by DayOne, and a 360-megawatt artificial intelligence facility announced by DayOne, Nvidia and Firmus Technologies.
Data centre electricity demand on Batam is projected to exceed 1,100 megawatts by 2030, enough to power nearly one million homes.
Authorities deny diversion of water
BP Batam has denied claims that water intended for residents was diverted to data centres, attributing the shortages to climate conditions.
Batam's water utility has said it is exploring measures to address the drought, including cloud seeding.
Following protests in August and September, authorities instructed incoming data centre operators to build their own desalination plants rather than draw freshwater from municipal reservoirs.
The measures come as concerns grow over the pressure that the expansion of digital infrastructure could place on the island's limited water resources.
Calls for greater transparency
Academic experts say limited public data on water consumption makes it difficult to assess the impact of data centres on local supplies.
Professor Agus Hasan said exact figures on data centre water use in Indonesia remain scarce because technology companies treat consumption data as proprietary information. He has urged the government to require transparent water-use figures before approving further projects.
Residents in affected districts, including Sei Beduk, have called on local officials to halt approvals that have not been adequately assessed and to prioritise access to basic public utilities over large corporate developments.
The protests have brought renewed attention to the challenge of balancing Batam's ambitions to attract digital infrastructure investment with the water needs of its residents.