Google's flagship India data center is cleared to draw more than double the power it has publicly claimed.
Clearance documents reviewed by the Guardian show Google's $15bn AI data center project in Andhra Pradesh has state environmental approval for 2.51 gigawatts of capacity. That is more than double the 1 gigawatt figure Google has publicized for the site. The Guardian's Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan reported the discrepancy from Tarluvada, one of the villages where the facility is being built. The clearance papers, not any company statement, are the source for the higher figure.
A permit is not a promise, and companies routinely secure headroom they never end up using. But a 2.5x gap between what regulators approved and what the public was told sets a low bar for transparency around one of the largest resource-intensive builds India has seen, in a region where power and land decisions directly affect the villages next to the site. It also fits a broader pattern in the AI buildout: capacity numbers move faster than chip orders, and public disclosures often lag the paperwork that locks in future load.
Reporters went to the village to find this out, not the press office, which says something about where the real accountability currently sits.