Karnataka’s 1 GW Data Centre Policy 2026-31: Growth vs Sustainability

• Sahil Harwani
• October 2, 2026
• Blog
• 0 Comments

1 GW by 2031: Karnataka’s Bet on Sustainable Data Centres.   

I’ve been doing a lot of research on data centres lately, and somehow even our lunch conversations are now about them.

Yesterday @Sahil Harwani asked me, “How’s the research going?”

I said, “My ethical side keeps questioning it, but the economy and market around data centres is huge.”

Then he said he had shared something interesting, about Karnataka’s new Sustainable Data Centre Policy 2026–31.

And it caught my attention.

Karnataka is targeting 1 GW of data-centre IT load by 2031, but what I found more interesting was the focus on renewable energy, cooling, water management and PUE/WUE.

The more I research this space, the more conflicted I get.

On one side, the economic opportunity around AI and data centres is massive.

On the other, all of this growth needs power, water, land and a lot of physical infrastructure.

And somehow, Karnataka’s new policy puts both sides on the table, the push to build more data centres, and the question of how much power, water and infrastructure that growth will require. 

Still figuring out what I think about it.

For now, back to the research.

And probably another data-centre debate over lunch tomorrow. 🙂

#DataCenters #AIInfrastructure #Karnataka #SustainableInfrastructure