Even bathing and cooking are difficult. Residents of Batam Island in Indonesia protest against the AI ​​data center for stealing water for daily use.

(Central News Agency, Batam, Indonesia, comprehensive foreign news report on the 8th) In Batam, Indonesia, as data centers have been built one after another to provide support for the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, the local tap water is facing depletion, making even cooking and bathing very difficult, triggering protests by local residents.

The local water operator told AFP that the area has been suffering from long-term drought due to low rainfall, and the strong El Niño phenomenon has exacerbated the dryness.

However, as in other countries, the data center has also caused public dissatisfaction. This type of facility looks like a warehouse and is responsible for maintaining the operation of various applications and AI tools, and often requires a large amount of water to cool the running servers.

Public dissatisfaction is growing in Indonesia and Malaysia, especially in areas bordering Singapore that are seen as priority sites for new technology facilities.

Juniardi Adinda Sembiring Gurukinayan, a 54-year-old technician, told AFP that the main reaction of local people at first was "Thank God, there is finally an industry in Batam."

However, the tap water service in some communities in Batam has been frequently and severely interrupted recently, causing him to "sometimes have no choice but not to take a shower."

"Without water, we can't cook rice, we can't cook vegetables," he said.

When the situation was at its worst, dozens of angry residents spontaneously protested outside Nongsa Digital Park. This new settlement, which consists of a data center and other facilities, has been designated a special economic zone.

Juniadi pointed out that local residents believe that "the water shortage problem... is related to the construction of the data center."

Ginda Alamsyah, spokesperson for the water company Air Batam Hilir, said that the drought caused the water level of the nearby Nongsa Reservoir to drop significantly, and the water supply system was further affected by power failure.

According to a report by KPMG Anhou Jianye, driven by a 10-fold increase in AI usage, the capacity of data centers in Southeast Asia is expected to triple that of 2025 by 2030.

That could put pressure on water supplies and pose a severe challenge to an electric grid that still relies heavily on fossil fuels that warm the planet.

The data center construction boom in Indonesia and Malaysia began when highly connected Singapore suspended approval of new data center development projects from 2019 to 2022 due to resource constraints.

Since then, the construction of data centers in the two countries has accelerated, and governments and technology giants have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in training and operating AI to drive economic growth in both countries.

Kinda said Air Batam Hilir supports policies that encourage investment and development in Batam. Batam Island is located south of Singapore and is connected to Singapore through submarine cables.