India's push to become a global hub for artificial intelligence infrastructure — backed by a 20-year tax holiday announced in February for foreign cloud companies — is generating fierce opposition from farming communities displaced by multibillion-dollar data centre projects. Google's $15 billion facility in Andhra Pradesh (a southern Indian state historically dominated by paddy farming and mango cultivation) has drawn protests over opaque land acquisition, environmental concerns, and an incentive package worth roughly $2.4 billion in public subsidies, while Microsoft faces unresolved allegations of encroachment and industrial waste dumping at its site in Telangana. Critics argue the Indian government is treating the expansion purely as an investment matter, sidelining local self-governance bodies and leaving farmers with far weaker property protections than their counterparts in the United States or European Union, where similar data centre projects have been paused or cancelled following community pushback.